Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple

Artist Jacopo del Casentino (Italian (Florentine), ca. 1278 - 1349)

Date1330

MediumTempera and gold leaf on wood panel

DimensionsOverall: 42 1/8 × 26 3/8 inches (107.01 × 66.99 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Object numberF61-59

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionAn altar rail with thin pole columns supports arches above. A robed Madonna at the altar hands the baby Jesus to a bearded man in a red robe. Behind him stand two bearded, robed, 3/4 length figures. To the left is a man in a yellow robe holding two doves; there is a face of a woman to his left. In the pinnacle above is a half-length figure representing God.
Gallery Label

Gallery Label

We know that this panel, originally part of a larger altarpiece, is Jacopo del Casentino's earliest dated work from the inscription "1330" on its base. Here the infant Christ has been presented to Saint Simeon by the Virgin and Joseph, who holds two doves brought to the temple for sacrifice. The prophetess Anna appears just over Joseph's shoulder. Jacopo places his figures within a Gothic church interior, giving the scene a sense of immediacy and relevance to a 14th-century public. The chancel screen separating us from the sacred gathering before the altar would have also served this purpose in an actual Gothic church where low, decorative walls or screens defined sacred spaces. A segment of an 11th-century chancel screen is on display to your right.

Provenance

With Paolo Paolini, Rome, by November 5, 1916 [1];

With Giuseppe Salvadori, Florence, by 1925;

Probably Achillito Chiesa, Milan, by 1925 [2];

Purchased from Chiesa by Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi (1878-1955), Rome and Florence, by October 10, 1936;

Purchased from Bonacossi by Samuel H. Kress (1863-1955), New York, October 10, 1936-1939;

His gift to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1939-1952;

Returned by the National Gallery of Art to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1952-1961;

Its gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1961.

NOTES:

[1] According to Harold Woodbury Parsons, in a letter to Bernard Berenson, November 5, 1916, Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers, Harold Woodbury Parsons, folder 1.

[2] Raimond van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, Volume V (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1925), 473-74, locates the painting in a private collection in Milan, probably that of Achillito Chiesa. Hans D. Gronau, “Notes on Trecento Painting: Some Unpublished Works by Jacopo di Casentino,” Burlington Magazine 53, no. 305 (August 1928): 82, places it in a private collection in Florence as by Taddeo Gaddi, while footnoting van Marle as citing it in Milan. The inclusion of Chiesa in this narrative is by recommendation of the National Gallery of Art, Kress Provenance Research Project.

Published References

Raimond Van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. 5 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1925), 473-474, as by Taddeo Gaddi.

Hans Dietrich Gronau, "Notes on Trecento Painting: Some Unpublished Works by Jacopo di Casentino,"

The Burlington Magazine 53, no. 305 (August 1928): 82, 82n12, 87, (repro.).

Bernard Berenson, "Missing Pictures of the Sienese Trecento," International Studio 97, no. 401 (October

1930): 35, (repro.).

Bernard Berenson, "Quadri senza casa: Il trecento sienese," Dedalo 11 (1930-31): 270, 272, (repro.).

Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 2, pt. 2, Works attributed to Jacopo del Casentino (New York: New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, 1930), 116, 269-70, (repro.).

William E. Suida, review of A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, by Richard Offner, Il Belvedere 19 (1932-33), 128.

Written attestations by Bernard Berenson, Giuseppe Fiocco, Roberto Longhi, Frederick Mason Perkins,

and Adolfo Venturi, 1936, copies in NAMA curatorial files.

Written attestation by Roberto Longhi, for Jacopo del Casentino's Saint John the Baptist, November

1939, copy in NAMA curatorial files.

National Gallery of Art: Book of Illustrations (Washington, D.C: National Gallery of Art., 1941), 124

(repro.).

National Gallery of Art: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1941), 101.

Dorothy C. Shorr, "The Iconographic Development of the Presentation in the Temple," The Art Bulletin

28, no. 1 (March 1946): 28.

Millard Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1951), 19n24.

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William E. Suida, Catalogue of The Samuel H. Kress Collection of Italian Paintings and Sculptures: The

William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri

(Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1952),

24, 25, (repro.).Bottom of Form

William E. Suida and Robert P. Griffing, Jr., The Samuel H. Kress Collection: The Honolulu Academy of

Arts (Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of the Arts, 1952), 12, 13.

Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol.

7, The Biadaiolo Illuminator, Master of the Dominican Effigies (New York: New York University, Institute

of Fine Arts, 1957), 100, 100n4.

Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol.

8, Workshop of Bernardo Daddi (New York: New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, 1958), 198.

Fern Rusk Shapley, The Samuel H. Kress Collection: El Paso Museum of Art (El Paso: El Paso Museum

of Art, 1961), unpaginated, (repro.).

Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, vol. 1 (London and New York:

Phaidon, 1963), 102, (repro.).

Pier Paolo Donati, Taddeo Gaddi (Florence: Sadea, 1966), 18.

Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century

(London: Phaidon, 1966), 24.

Richard Offner and Klara Steinweg, A Critical and Historical Corpus Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 4, vol. 4, pt. 1, Giovanni del Biondo (New York: New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, 1967), 67n2, 70n2, (repro.).

Giovanni Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (Milan: Fratelli Fabbri, 1967), 143n209.

Bernard Berenson, “Missing Pictures of the Sienese Trecento” in Homeless Paintings of the

Renaissance, ed. Hanna Kiel (1930; repr., Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1969), 24, (repro.).

Ferdinando Bologna, Novità su Giotto: Giotto al tempo della cappella Peruzzi (Turin: Giulio Einaudi,

1969), 88-89, (repro.).

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North

American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 101, 274, 589.

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), 78, (repro.).

Dizionario enciclopedico Bolaffi dei pittori e degli incisori italiani dall'XI al XX secolo, vol. 6 (Torino: Giulio

Bolaffi, 1974), 293-295, (repro.).

Miklós Boskovits, Pittura Fiorentina: alla vigilia del Rinascimento 1370-1400 (Florence: Edam, 1975),

19n33.

Richard Fremantle, Florentine Gothic Painters: From Giotto to Masaccio (London: M. Secker and

Warburg, 1975), 116, 118, 629, 633, 636, (repro.).

Maria G. Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto, Il Maestro del Codice di San Giorgio e il Cardinale Jacopo

Stefaneschi (Florence: Edam, 1981), 217n189.

Adriano Peroni et al., Pavia, Pinacoteca Malaspina (Pavia: Comune di Pavia, 1981), 198-199.

Carlo Volpe, Early Italian Paintings and Works of Art, 1300-1480, exh. cat. (London: Matthiesen Fine Art,

1983), 19-20.

Andrew Ladis, "The Velluti Chapel in Santa Croce, Florence," Apollo 120, no. 272 (October 1984):

239n4.

Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3,

vol. 9, The Painters of the Miniaturist Tendency (Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1984), 57, 57n199, 58-59.

Giorgio Vasari, Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori et scultori italiani. Le vite de' piú eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri, eds. Luciano Bellosi and Aldo Ross (1550; repr. Turino: Giulio Einaudi, 1986), 185n1.

Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The

Fourteenth Century, sec. 3. vol. 2, Works attributed to Jacopo del Casentino, 2^nd ed. (Florence: Giunti

Barbèra, 1987), 386, 402n2, 428-432, 590n1.

Sir Geoffrey Agnew...: An Exhibition of Old Master and English Pictures and Watercolors Lent by His Friends, exh. cat. (London: Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd., June 1-July 22, 1988), 15.

Miklós Boskovits, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Katalog der Gemälde: Fruhe italienische Malerei, ed. and

trans. Erich Schleier (Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1988), 69, 70.

Gothic to Renaissance: European Painting 1300-1600, exh. cat. (London: Golnaghi, 1988), 54.

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Bottom of Form

Marilyn Perry, "Five-and-Dime for Millions: The Samuel H. Kress Collection," Apollo 133, no. 349 (March 1991): 158.

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), 135, (repro.).

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800, (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 18, 20, 26, 40-46, 43, (repro.).

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.