Madonna of Humility

Former TitleThe Virgin and Child

Artist Lorenzo Monaco and assistant (Bartolomeo di Fruosino?) (Italian, ca. 1375 - 1423/1424)

Formerly attributed toWorkshop of Don Lorenzo

Dateca. 1410

MediumTempera and gold leaf on wood panel

DimensionsOverall: 44 7/16 × 26 3/16 inches (112.87 × 66.52 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number40-40

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionA haloed Madonna is shown full length seated on the ground against a gold leaf background, set within an ogival-shaped field. She wears an ivory cloak with gold and a green lining, an ivory dress and a blue head veil around her neck. The haloed Christ Child, who is held in her left arm, suckles at her breast and wears a magenta robe. Two angels hold the Madonna's cloak behind her. The robes, haloes and foreground are tooled in gold. In the predella below, in three roundels, are the Virgin, the dead Christ, and St. John the Evangelist.
Exhibition History

Exhibition History

40 Masterpieces: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings from American Museums, City Art Museum of St. Louis, October 6- November 10, 1947, no. 27.

Jubilee Loan Exhibition, 1901-1951: Masterpieces from Museums and Private Collections, Wildentein & Co., New York, November 8- December 15, 1951, no. 2.

Gallery Label

Depictions of the Virgin seated on the ground to emphasize her humility were popular in the late-Gothic period when a greater focus on Christ's humble origin and humanity was sought in devotional images. The elaborate folds in the Virgin's draperies are typical of the period, but their off-white color is unusual. White was the color worn by the Camaldolese monastic order, a branch of the Benedictines to which Lorenzo Monaco belonged. The small, subsidiary figures of the angels holding the cloth of honor above the Virgin and Christ Child, as well as the images of Christ, the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist below them, may be the work of a collaborator, Bartolomeo di Fruosino, who was well-known as a miniaturist.

Provenance

Giuseppe Toscanelli (1828-1891), Pontedera, near Pisa, Italy, by April 9, 1883;

His sale, Tableaux, Meubles, et Objets d’Art formant la Galerie de Mr. le Chevr. Toscanelli, Giulio Sambon, Entreprise des ventes, Florence, April 9, 1883, lot 105, as by Jacopo di Mino del Pellicciaio;

Édouard Aynard (1837-1913), Lyon, France, by 1913;

Purchased at his posthumous sale, Tableaux anciens…Tableaux modernes…Objets d’art…composant la Collection de feu M. Édouard Aynard, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, December 1-4, 1913, lot 55, as La Vierge et l’Enfant, by Georges Hoentschel (1855-1915), Paris, 1913;

William P. Bloch, London;

With Wildenstein and Co., New York, by 1940;

Purchased from Wildenstein by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1940.

Published References

Salomon Reinach, Répertoire de peintures du moyen âge et de la renaissance (1250-1580), vol. 1 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1905), 196, (repro.).

Osvald Sirén, Don Lorenzo Monaco (Strasbourg: Heitz and Mündel, 1905), 168, 168n2, 169, 191, as by a pupil of Lorenzo Monaco.

Catalogue des Tableaux Anciens, Écoles Primitives et de la Renaissance. Écoles Anglaise, Flamande, Francaise, Hollandaise des XVII et XVII Siecles (Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, December 1-4, 1913), xvi, 55, 70, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Raimond Van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. 9, Late Gothic Painting in Tuscany (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1927), 130, 130n4.

Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 23 (Leipzig: Verlag E. A. Seemann, 1929): 392, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Bernard Berenson, "Quadri senza casa: Il trecento fiorentino, IV," Dedalo 12 (1932): 32, 33, (repro.), 34, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Millard Meiss, "The Madonna of Humility," The Art Bulletin 18, no. 4 (1936): 448n32.

Charles Sterling, La peinture française: Les primitifs (Paris: Librairie Floury, 1938), 93, (repro.).

George Pudelko, "The Stylistic Development of Lorenzo Monaco-II," The Burlington Magazine 74, no. 431 (February 1939): 76n2, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

“BUYS MONACO PAINTING: Kansas City Museum Gets Rare Panel by Italian Master,” New York Times (December 1, 1940): 56.

"Important Anniversary Acquisition for Kansas City: 'Madonna and Child' by Monaco," Art News 34, no. 10 (December 7, 1940): 6, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

"Kansas City Enriched,” Art Digest 15, no. 6 (December 15, 1940): cover, (repro.), 6, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Ella Siple, "Art in America," The Burlington Magazine 82, no. 478 (January 1943): 25, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

40 Masterpieces: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings from American Museums, exh. cat. (St. Louis, MO: City Art Museum, 1947), 68, 69, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Italian Paintings (New York: Wildenstein & Co, 1947), unpaginated, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 40, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Jubilee Loan Exhibition, 1901-1951: Masterpieces from Museums and Private Collections, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein & Co., 1951), unpaginated, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Top of Form

Henry A. LaFarge, "Kansas City: Depression-Baby 25 Years Later," Art News 57, no. 9 (January 1959): 40, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Sele Arte 17, no. 41 (Ivrea: Olivetti, 1959): 17, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 59, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, vol. 1 (London and New York: Phaidon, 1963), 119, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Rosalba Amerio, Encyclopedia of World Art 9 (New York, 1964): 338, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Franco Russoli, The Berenson Collection (Milan: Arti Grafiche Ricordi, 1964), XXXII.

Holy Cross Magazine 78 (February 1967): 2, (repro.).

Brigitte Klesse, Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts (Bern: Stämpfli, 1967), 116-117, 122, 221, 298, 464, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Bernard Berenson, “Missing Pictures of the Florentine Trecento,” in Homeless Paintings of the Renaissance, ed. Hanna Kiel (1932; London: Thames & Hudson, 1969): 140-41, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco and another unknown hand.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of pre-nineteenth-century Italian paintings in North American public collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 111, 346, 589, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 81, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Miklòs Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370-1400 (Florence: Edam, 1975), 347, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Jean-François Garmier, "Le goût du moyen âge chez les collectionneurs lyonnais du XIXe siècle," Revue de l'Art 47 (January 1980): 59, 59n154, as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Marvin Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 83, 84, 88, 92, 95, 136-7, 155, 156, 169, (repro.), as by workshop of Lorenzo Monaco.

Pierre Arizzoli-Clémentel et al., Edouard Aynard, le fondateur du musée, exh. cat. (Lyon: Musée historique des Tissus, 1990), 39.

Letter from Laurence B. Kanter to Eliot Rowlands, October 22, 1993, NAMA curatorial files, as by workshop of Lorenzo Monaco with possible participation of Lorenzo in execution of two main figures.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1933-1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 52, 63, as by Lorenzo Monaco and workshop.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 138, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco and workshop.

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 174, 176, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco.

Laurence B. Kanter et al, Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300-1450, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), 296, 304.

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 18, 86-92, (repro.), as by Lorenzo Monaco and assistant (Bartolomeo di Fruosino.

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.