Christ and the Centurion

Artist Veronese and Workshop (Italian, 16th century)

Dateca. 1575

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 55 3/8 × 81 1/8 inches (140.65 × 206.07 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number31-73

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionFourteen figures are arranged in two groups in the foreground; they stand in a courtyard with a stone column visible at the right edge of the painting. The group at the left side of the canvas is composed of six male figures; the center figure (Christ) wears a mauve tunic and a blue mantle and gestures with his left hand to a man in red tunic and armor kneeling in front and to the right of him. Also in this group at the right side and behind the kneeling figure are five light-skinned soldiers, one dark-skinned man in a red hat, and a male child. In the right middle ground is visible the second floor of an arcade where several people look down. In the middle background is another arcade, through which can be seen the green foliage of a forest.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, Royal Academy of Arts, London, Winter 1883, no. 184.

Masterpieces of Art, New York World’s Fair, May–October 1939.

Paolo Veronese: Versatile Master of Renaissance Venice, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, December 6, 2012–April 14, 2013.

Gallery Label

The subject of Christ converting the Roman Centurion, whose servant Christ healed, symbolizes the spread of the Christian faith to non-Jews. The story was especially popular in Venice, which, as a major port and trading center, was a very cosmopolitan city with a diverse population. In this painting, the strict relief composition shows the persistence of classicizing Renaissance ideas in the age of Mannerism. Many details of the armor in the right-hand group, especially the helmets, follow contemporary 16th-century rather than ancient Roman patterns in a way typical of the Italian Renaissance, which did not always adhere slavishly to classical models.

Provenance

Vincenzo di Pietro (1588-1646) and Marina (née Calergi) Grimani, Palazzo di San Marcuola (Ca’ Vendramin Calergi), Venice, by 1646;

By descent to their sons, Vettor (1610-1665), Antonio, Pietro, and Giovanni Grimani Calergi, 1646;

Purchased from Vettor Grimani Calergi by Carlo II Gonzaga, 9th Duke of Mantua (1629-1665), Villa Favorita, near Mantua, by February 21, 1664-1665 [1];

By descent to his son, Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, 10th Duke of Mantua (1652-1708), Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, 1665-1708;

Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga estate, 1708-March 1711;

Transferred to his cousins, Anne Henriette Julie, princesse de Condé (1648-1723), Bénédicte Henriette, Duchess of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and Duchess of Hannover (1652-1730), and Marie-Louise, Princess of Salm, March 1711-at least April 1711 [2];

Private collection, Paris, by 1715;

Possibly Laurent Charron (1678-1751), Paris, by 1751 [3];

Possibly inherited by his wife, Françoise Matagon, Paris, 1751-at least July 22, 1752;

Louis Léon Félicité, duc de Brancas, comte de Lauraguais (1733-1824), Paris, by March 12, 1772;

Purchased at his sale, Tableaux, Figures, Bustes de marbre, Laques, Ouvrages en marquéterie de Boule, Porcelaines du Japon, & autres effets curieux, Grand Convent des Révérends Pères Augustins, Paris, March 12, 1772, lot 1, by Vincent Donjeux, 1772;

Jean-François Marin, Paris, by March 22, 1790;

Purchased at his sale, Une très belle collection de tableaux, d’Italie, de Flandres, de Hollande, et de France, dessins, estampes montées & en feuilles…provenant du cabinet de feu M. Marin, la grande Salle, rue de Cléry, Paris, March 22, 1790, lot 392, by Prévost, 1790;

With Michael Bryan (1757-1821), London, by November 6, 1801;

Sir Henry Bouverie Paulet St. John-Mildmay, 5th Baronet (1810-1902), Dogmersfield House, Fleet, Hampshire, by 1883-1902;

By descent to his son, Sir Henry Paulet St. John-Mildmay, 6th Baronet (1853-1916), Dogmersfield House, Fleet, Hampshire, 1902-1916;

Inherited by his brother, Sir Gerald Anthony Shaw-Lefevre-St. John-Mildmay, 7th Baronet (1860-1929), Dogmersfield House, Fleet, Hampshire, 1916;

Purchased from St. John-Mildmay by Arthur J. Sulley (1854-1930), London, by 1929-1930;

By descent to his daughter, Muriel Sulley, London, 1930-1931;

Purchased from Muriel Sulley through Scott and Fowles, New York, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1931.

NOTES:

[1] Letter from Paolo del Sera to Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici, February 21, 1664, Archivio de Stato, Florence, Carteggio di Artisti, filza 6, p. 331.

[2] Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga died intestate, and his numerous debts necessitated the sale of much of his collection. This painting was awarded to his three cousins by the Venetian Senate and offered for sale by them on the European art market in April 1711. It is unclear whether the paintings sold. “A list of pictures left by the late duke of Mantoa [sic] with the prises [sic] at which they have been esteemed upon oath before the Quarantia Criminale by Sig. Sebastian Rizzi and other two the best painters in Venice,” Public Records Office, London, State Papers 99, vol. 59, part 2, fol. 333, as published in U. Meroni, ed., Lettere e altri documenti intorno alla storia della pittura raccolte di quadri a Mantova nel sei- settecento, (Monzambano: Edizioni per le fonti di storia della pittura, 1976): 71, transcribed from original document: “An Adoration of the Kings by Paul Veronese/The Captain at the feet of Christ, by the same.”

[3] “Inventaire après décès de Laurent Charron, écuyer, conseiller secrétaire du Roi, receveur général des domaines et bois de la généralité de Paris, à le requête de Françoise Matagon, sa veuve, demeurant rue du Chaume,” July 22, 1752, Archives Nationales, Paris, Minutier Central des Notaires de la Seine, LXIX, 662, as published in D. Wildenstein, Inventaires après décès d’artistes et de collecionneurs français du XVIIIe siècle, (Paris: les Beaux-arts, 1967): 171: “Dans un cabinet au premier étage, ayant vue sur la cour:…Un grand tableau sur toile, par Paul Veronese, surnommé Caliaré, représentant le centenier au pied de Notre Seigneur, dans sa bordure….”

Published References

Possibly Carlo Ridolfi, Le maraviglie dell'arte, ouero, Le vite degli illustri pittori veneti, e dello stato, ed. Detlev van Hadeln, vol. 1 (1648; repr. Berlin: G. Grote, 1914-1924), 338.

Pierre Remy, Notice de Tableaux, Figures, Bustes de marbre, Laques, Ouvrages en marquéterie de Boule, Porcelaines du Japon, & autres effets curieux ([Paris], March 12, 1772), unpaginated, as by Veronese.

Catalogue d’une très belle collection de tableaux, d’Italie, de Flandres, de Hollande, et de France… provenant du cabinet de feu M. Marin (Paris, March 22, 1790), 98, as attributed to Veronese.

Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1883), 36 (repro.), as by Veronese.

Pietro Caliari, Veronese: sua vita e sue opere (Rome: Forzani, 1888), 131, 220, 237, 251.

Alessandro Luzio, La Galleria dei Gonzaga venduta all’Inghilterra nel 1627-28 (Milan: L.F. Congliati, 1913), 315.

Lionello Venturi, “Contributi a Melozzo da Forli, a Colontonio, a Paolo Veronese,” L’Arte 1, no. 3 (May 1930): 292-299, (repro.), as by Veronese.

“Kansas City Gets $1,000,000 Art Here,” New York Times (February 20, 1931): 16, as by Veronese.

“Parsons Makes More Purchases for Kansas City,” Art News 29 (March 28, 1931): 6, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 422, as by Veronese.

“Like Helmeted Minerva, Springs Kansas City’s New Art Museum,” Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 1, as by Veronese.

Alfred M. Frankfurter, “Paintings in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art,” in “The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 29, 34, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, vol. 3, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century, trans Countess van den Heuven and Charles Marriott (New York: E. Weyhe, 1933), unpaginated, (repro.), as by Veronese.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 18, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Bernhard Berenson, I Pittori Italiani del Rinascimento (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1936), 59, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Bernhard Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento: Catalogo dei Principali Artisti e delle Loro Opere con un Indice dei Luoghi (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1936), 262, (repro.), as by Veronese.

“A Great Newspaper Builds a Great Art Museum,” Life (October 9, 1939): 53, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Helen Comstock, “The New York World’s Fair Loan Exhibition of Masterpieces,” Connoisseur 103 (1939): 319-320, (repro.), as by Veronese.

George Henry McCall and Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner, Masterpieces of Art: Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, exh. cat. ([New York, Publishers Printing Company, 1939), 132, (repro.), as by Veronese.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 30, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Hans Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1944), 350, (repro.).

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), 43, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Andor Pigler, Barockthemen: Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. Und 18. Jahrhunderts, vol.1 (Budapest: Verlag der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenchaften, 1956), 273, as by Veronese.

Philipp Fehl, “Questions of Identity in Veronese’s Christ and the Centurion,” Art Bulletin 39 (1957): 301-302, (repro.).

Bernhard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School, vol. 1 (London: Phaidon Press, 1957), 132, as by Veronese.

K.T. Parker and Jacques Mathey, Antoine Watteau: Catalogue complet de son oeuvre dessiné, vol. 1 (Paris: F. de Nobele, 1957), no. 347.

Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, vol. 2, part 2 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957), 375, as by Veronese.

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), 69, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Simona Savini Branca, Il collezionismo veneziano nel ‘600 (Padua: Cedam, 1965), 148, 228.

Michelangelo Muraro, Studiosi, collezionisti e opera d’arte veneta dale lettere al cardinal Leopoldo de’Medici, (Venice: Neri Pozza, 1965), 82.

Daniel Wildenstein, Inventaires après décès d’artistes et de collectionneurs français du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, 1967), 171.

Andor Pigler, Katalog der Galerie Alter Meister, vol. 1 (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1968), 749.

Guido Piovene and Remigio Martini, L’opera complete del Veronese (Milan: Rizzoli Editore, 1968), no. 154c, pp. 83, 113, (repro.), as by .

Wolfman Prinz, “Veronese ‘istoriato,’” in Festschrift Ulrich Middeldorf, eds. Antje Middeldorf Kosegarten and Peter Tigler, vol. 1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968): 335, 339.

Rolf Kultzen and P Eikemeir, Bäyerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, München. Venezianische Gemälde des 15. Und 16. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1971), 222, as by Veronese.

Terisio Pignatti, “Un disegno di figura di Francesco Guardi, dimenticato” in Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Antonio Morassi (Venice: Alfieri, 1971), 321.

B.B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 39, 278, 589, as by Veronese.

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), 91 (repro.), as by Veronese.

Andor Pigler, Barockthemen, 2^nd ed., vol. 1 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1974), 277, as by workshop of Veronese.

Terisio Pignatti, Venetian Drawings from American Collections, exh. cat. (Washington: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1974), 55, (repro.), as by Veronese.

Antonio Morassi, Guardi: Tutti i disegni di Antonio, Francesco e Giacomo Guardi, vol. 1 (Venice, Alfieri, 1975), 101, as by Veronese.

Detlev von Hadlen, Paolo Veronese, ed. Gunter Schweikhart (Florence: Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz, 1976), 139, (repro.).

Ubaldi Meroni, ed., Lettere a altri documenti intorno alla storia della pittura raccolte di quadri a Mantova nel sei-settecento (Mozambano, 1976), 46, 52, 60, 71.

Terisio Pignatti, Veronese (Venice: Alfieri, 1976), 1: no. A130, pp. 80, 133, 186; 2: unpaginated, (repro.), as attributed to Veronese with parts executed in his workshop, possibly by Bendetto Caliari.

Toledo Museum of Art: European Paintings (Toledo: Toledo Museum of Art, 1976), 164.

Terisio Pignatti, “Aggiunta al catalogo del Veronese,” Arte Veneta 32 (1978): 216.

John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 294, as by Veronese.

Richard Cocke, “The Development of Veronese’s Critical Reputation,” Arte Veneta 34 (1980): 98n24.

David Rosand, Painting in Cinquecento Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 170n71.

Isadora Joan Rose Wagner, “Manuel Godoy: Patron de las artes y coleccionista,” vol. 2 (PhD diss., Universidad Complutense, 1983), 514-515.

Richard Cocke, Veronese’s Drawings, with a Catalogue Raisonné (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 366.

Margaret Morgan Grasselli and Pierre Rosenberg, Watteau, 1684-1721, exh. cat. (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1984), 214, 215, (repro.).

Grgo Gamulin, “Per gli eredi di Paolo Veronese,” Arte Veneta 40 (1986): 160.

Roseline Bacou, et al., Dessins français du XVIIIe siècle de Watteau à Lemoyne, exh. cat. (Paris: Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1987), 75.

Margaret Morgan Grasselli, “The Drawings of Antoine Watteau: Stylistic Development and Problems of Chronology,” vol. 2 (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1987), 245-46, (repro.).

William R. Rearick, The Art of Paolo Veronese, 1528-1588, exh. cat. (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1988), 200, as by workshop of Veronese.

Irina Artemieva, “Su di un probabile autoritratto di Paolo Veronese,” Arte Veneta 43 (1989-90): 83.

Massimo Gemin and Filippo Pedrocco, Ca’ Vendramin Calergi (Milan: Berenice, 1990), 80, 81, 86, (repro.), as by workshop of Veronese.

Pinacoteca di Brera: Scuola Veneta (Milan: Electa, 1990), 275, (repro.).

Terisio Pignatti and Filippo Pedrocco, Veronese: Catalogo complete dei dipinti (Florence: Cantini, 1991), no. 28A, p. 329, as attributed to Benedetto Caliari.

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), 155, (repro.).

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 98.

Martin Eidelberg and Eliot Wooldridge Rowlands, “The Dispersal of the Last Duke of Mantua’s Paintings,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 123 (1994): 223-26, 228, 231, 273n120, (repro.).

Elliot Wooldridge Rowlands, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 18, 196-211 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 65, (repro.).

Virginia Brilliant, ed., Paolo Veronese: A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice, exh. cat. (London: Scala, 2012), 139, 141-144, 264, (repro.), as by Paolo Veronese and workshop.

Miguel Falomir, Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo et al., Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2025).

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