Saint James the Less

Possibly commissioned by Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II, 1443-1513) for the Church of SS. Apostoli, Rome [1];

With Domenico Corvisieri, Rome;

Purchased from Corvisieri by Count Grigorij S. Stroganoff (1829-1910), Rome, as Saint Jude, by 1910 [2];

By descent to his daughter, Maria Grigorievna Scherbatoff (d. 1920), 1910 [3];

By descent to her son and daughter, Vladimir Alekseevich (1880-1920) and Aleksandra Alekseevna (d. 1920) Scherbatoff, 1910-1920 [4];

By descent to Vladimir’s widow, Elena Petrovna Stolypin Scherbatoff (1892-1985), and their daughters, Olga Vladimirovna (1915-1948) and Maria Vladimirovna Scherbatoff (1916-2005), Rome, 1920-probably 1924 [5];

Purchased from the Scherbatoff family by Galleria Giorgio Sangiorgi, Rome, probably 1924 [6];

With Jacob Hirsch, New York, stock no. 1037, as Saint Jude, by August 1950-March 27, 1952 [7];

Purchased from Hirsch by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York, stock no. K-1922, as Saint Jude, March 27, 1952-1961 [8];

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

NOTES:

[1] This sculpture, along with its pendant Saint Philip (F61-68), has generally been considered to be among a group of monuments commissioned by Cardinal Guillaume de Perrier in the 1490s. This connection to de Perrier was first published in Antonio Muñoz, Pièces de choix de la collection du Comte Grégoire Stroganoff, seconde partie (Rome: Unione editrice, 1911), 122 and often repeated in subsequent publications. An alternative patron was proposed by Frida Schottmüller in Die Italienischen und spanien bildwerke des Renaissance und des Barocks in marmor, ton, holz und stuck , volume 5, Beschreibung der bildwerke der Christliche epochen (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1913), 140-41, in which she suggests that these sculptures were commissioned by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II). Recent scholarship has continued this focus on Giuliano della Rovere as the patron. Michael Kühlenthal, in “The Monument of Raffaele della Rovere in Santi Apostoli in Rome,” in Claudio Crescentini and Claudio Strinati, eds., Andrea Bregno: Il senso della forma nella cultura artistica del Rinascimento (Florence: Maschietto, 2008), 214-15, suggests the reliefs were commissioned by Giuliano della Rovere as part of a monument honoring his father, Raffaele della Rovere, brother of Pope Sixtus IV, and that the monument was mostly dismantled and the reliefs removed in 1571 when Alessandro Riario installed an inscription in the same wall.

[2] Muñoz 1911, 122.

[3] Maria, Vladimir and Aleksandra Scherbatoff were killed in 1920 during the Russian Revolution. For a description of the Stroganoff collection’s descent through the family during this tumultuous period, see Fabiola Cogliandro, “Vicende collezionistiche dei dipinti italiani dal XIII al XVI secolo della Collezione d’arte di Grigorij Sergeevič Stroganoff,” Figure 1 (2013), 73-85 and Varduì Kalpakcian, “The New Acquisition of The Metropolitan Museum of Arts [sic] – Duccio’s Madonna from the Roman Collection of Count G. S. Stroganoff” (2005), published on Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/13810737/The_new_acquisition_of_the_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Arts_-_Duccio_s_%D0%9C%D0%B0donn%D0%B0_from_the_roman_collection_of_count_G.S.Stroganoff (last accessed March 10, 2020), among other sources.

[4] Upon the death of Gregorij in 1910, his daughter Maria transferred her right of inheritance to her son Vladimir and daughter Aleksandra.

[5] See note 3.

[6] Galleria Sangiorgi is listed as a former owner on a photograph in the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Photo Library, copy in NAMA curatorial files. According to Varduì Kalpakcian, “Il destino della colleziona romana del conte Grigorij S. Stroganoff [1829-1910] dopo la scomparsa del collezionista,” Rivista d’Arte 2, series 5 (2012), 447-473, Sangiorgi bought these sculptures from the Stroganoff heirs in 1924. His request to the Directorate of Fine Arts in Rome to allow their export is recorded in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, and dated March 20, 1924. See Kalpakcian 2012, p. 464, note 82 (note 83 in the text, as footnote numbering is offset).

[7] In a letter to Germain Seligmann, dated August 18, 1950, dealer (and Nelson-Atkins agent) Harold Woodbury Parsons offers both Saint Philip and Saint James the Less to Seligmann on behalf of their owner. This owner is identified as the dealer Jacob Hirsch, a friend of Parsons’s, through the purchasing records for Saint James the Less in the Kress Foundation Archive, New York, Series 1.7b (Dealer Correspondence and Bills of Sale), Box 113, Hirsch, Jacob, Bills of Sale, 1944-1955, copy in NAMA curatorial files.

Jacob Hirsch, PhD. (1874–1955) was born in Munich, studied at Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Rome, and then founded a dealership in Munich in 1897. He moved to Lucerne in 1919 and founded Ars Classica in 1922. In 1931, he opened Jacob Hirsch Antiquities in New York. At some point, he also had a gallery in Paris. He handled coins and antiquities but also had his own collection. See Hadrien Rambach, “A List of coin dealers in nineteenth-century Germany,” in A Collection in Context. Kommentierte Edition der Briefe und Dokumente Sammlung Dr. Karl von Schäffer, ed. Henner Hardt and Stefan Krmnicek (Tübingen, Germany: Tübingen University Press, 2017),  69–70, hal-04345662. See also “Dr. Jacob Hirsch, 81, An Authority on Art,” New York Times, July 5, 1955, 29.

[8] Archives of American Art, Washington, DC, Jacques Seligmann and Co. records, Box 286, folder 2, bound stock lists: all stock, 1950-1960s, copy in NAMA curatorial files.