Saint Cecilia

Artist Bernardo Strozzi (Italian, 1581/1582 - 1644)

Date1620-1625

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 68 1/8 x 48 3/8 x 1 7/8 inches (173.04 x 122.86 x 4.75 cm)
Framed: 79 x 59 1/8 x 3 1/8 inches (200.66 x 150.19 x 7.95 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number44-39

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionA full-length figure female figure with fair skin sits in a dark interior and wears a dress consisting of a dark rose bodice and a periwinkle blue textured skirt. A lace-trimmed chemise worn underneath is visible at the neckline and at the sleeves. She holds a lacy shawl with a grayish background in her left hand; the shawl lies across her lap and falls to the ground at right. Her right arm rests on a lute and holds a palm leaf. Two fluted columns and a base are visible in the right background.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Galleria Geri-Boralevi, Venice, September-October 1920, no cat.

Musical Instruments and Their Portrayal in Art, The Baltimore Museum of Art, April 26-June 2, 1946, no. 36.

Of Music and Art, Milwaukee Art Institute, WI, September 10-October 24, 1954, no. 124.

Bernardo Strozzi: Paintings and Drawings, University Art Gallery, Binghampton, NY, October 8-November 5, 1967, no. 8.

Baroque Art: Era of Elegance, The Denver Art Museum, October 3-November 15, 1971, unnumbered.

Woman as Heroine, Worcester Art Museum, MA, September 15-October 22, 1972, no. 3.

Bernardo Strozzi: Master Painter of the Italian Baroque, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, September 10-November 26, 1995, no. 11.

Van Dyck a Genova: grande pittura e collezionismo, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, Italy, March 22-July 13, 1997, no. 26.

L’ Età di Rubens: Dimore, committenti e collezionisti genovesi, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, Italy, 20 March–July 11, 2004, no. 48.

Gallery Label

Bernardo Strozzi was a member of the Roman Catholic religious order, the Capuchins, and therefore was permitted to paint only religious subjects. Nevertheless, his work has a joyful secularism and a ravishing charm, enhanced by scintillating brushwork. He excelled in a careful attention to detail shown here in the slits of Saint Cecilia's dress, which allow the white fabric underneath to show through. The classical columns in the background allude to Saint Cecilia's aristocratic Roman family who secretly practiced Christianity. Her martyrdom is symbolized by the palm frond in her right hand. Cecilia is flanked by an organ and a violin, her attributes as the patron saint of music.

Provenance

Probably commissioned by Giovanni Carlo Doria (1576/77-1625), Palazzo Doria di Vico di Gelsomino, Piazza dei Garibaldi, Genoa, by 1625;

By descent to his son, Agostino Doria (ca. 1620-1644), Genoa, 1625-1644;

Inherited by his uncle, Marc’antonio Doria (1572-1651), 1644-1651;

By descent to Marc’antonio III Doria, Palazzo Doria di Vico di Gelsomino, Genoa, by 1766;

With Italico Brass (1870-1943), Venice, by 1921-1943;

U.S. Office of Alien Property Custodian, New York, September 1, 1943-July 15, 1944 [1];

Purchased at the latter’s sale, U.S. Office of the Property Custodian, New York, July 20, 1944, lot 14, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1944.

NOTES:

[1] Italico Brass lent the painting to NAMA from November 22, 1940 to December 14, 1943. Upon Brass’ death in 1943, it was sequestered as alien property by the U.S. Office of Alien Property Custodian, New York, Vesting Order Number 2051.

Published References

Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, Instruzione di quanto può vedersi di più bello in Genova in pittura, scultura, ed architettura (Genoa: Paolo e Adamo Scionico, 1766), 307.

Giuseppe Fiocco, Bernardo Strozzi (Rome: Società editrice della Biblioteca d'arte illustrata, 1921), 7-8, 20, (repro.).

Wart Arslan, “Quattro piccolo contribute,” La Critica d’Arte 3 (1938): 76, 76n5.

Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, vol. 32 (Leipzig: Verlag Von E. A. Seeman, 1938), 207, 209.

Tito da Ottone, Bernardo Strozzi (Il Cappuccino) (Genoa: Il Raccoglitore, 1940), 96.

“Merchandise for Sale,” [New York] Herald Tribune (June 15, 1944): 33.

“Coming Auctions: Alien Property Sale,” Art News 43 (July 1-31, 1944): 25, (repro.).

“The Nelson Gallery Acquires Strozzi’s St. Cecilia,” (September 8, 1944), clipping, NAMA curatorial files.

“U.S. Museums 1944,” Art News 43 (January 1-14, 1945): 22.

Musical Instruments and Their Portrayal in Art, exh. cat. (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1946), 13, (repro.).

“The Athens in Missouri,” Art News 48 (April 1949): 38, (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), 46, (repro.).

Rodolfo Siviero, Second National Exhibition of the Works of Art Recovered in Germany, exh. cat. (Rome: Palazzo Venezia, 1950), 36-37.

Of Music and Art, exh. cat. (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Institute, 1954), unpaginated, (repro.).

Luisa Mortari, “Su Bernardo Strozzi,” Bollettino d’Arte 40 (1955): 330, 333.

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), 73, (repro.).

R.F.C. “Kansas City: Venticinque anni d’ attività del Nelson Gallery Atkins Museum,” Emporium 132 (July-December 1960): 32, 34, (repro.).

A. von Zallinger, review of Bernardo Strozzi, by Luisa Mortari, Cultura Atesina 19 (1965): 109-10.

Luisa Mortari, Bernardo Strozzi (Rome: De Luca, 1966), 171, 179, 187, 202, (repro.).

Michael Milkovich, Bernardo Strozzi: Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (Binghamton: University Art Gallery, 1967), 28, 29, (repro.).

Rudolf J. Heinemann, ed., The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, vol. 1 (Castagnola: Villa Favorita, 1969), 319.

Baroque Art: Era of Elegance, exh. cat. (Denver: Denver Art Museum, 1971), 20, 21, (repro.).

Joseph T. Butler, “The American Way with Art,” Connoisseur 118 (1972): 212, (repro.).

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96 (1972): 534, 537, (repro.) 534, 537, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 66, 69, (repro.)].

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 193, 387, 589.

D. Denise Minault, Woman as Heroine, exh. cat. (Worcester: Worcester Art Museum, 1972), 60, 61, (repro.).

Alfred Werner, “Aus der Arbeit der Museen,” Pantheon 30 (November-December 1972): 516, (repro.).

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), 112, (repro.).

Rodolfo Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del seicento, vol. 1 (Milan: Alfieri, 1981), 156.

Christopher Wright, Italian, French and Spanish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (London: Frederick Warne, 1981), 61.

Bozena Steinborn, Katalog Zbiorów Malarstwa Krajów Romańskich (Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu, 1982), 145-46.

Ezio Chini, Dipinti su tela a Rovereto: Restauri, exh. cat. (Trento: Provincia autonoma di Trento, assessorato alle attività culturali, 1983), 15, 16, (repro.).

Dizionario enciclopedico dei pittori e degli incisiori italiani, vol. 10 (Milan: Giogio Mondadori e Associati, 1983), 458.

Rodolfo Siviero, L’ opera ritrovata: Omaggio a Rodolfo Siviero, exh. cat. (Florence: Cantini Edizioni d’ Arte, 1984), 163, (repro.).

Gertrude Borghero, ed., Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Catalogue Raisonné of the Exhibited Works of Art (Milan: Electa, 1986), 301, (repro.).

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 56-57, (repro.).

Jean K. Cadogan, ed., Wadsworth Atheneum Paintings II: Italy, Spain, Fourteenth Through Nineteenth Centuries (Hartford: The Atheneum, 1991), 229, 232, 232n1, 232n11, 232n12, 232n19, (repro.).

Linda Ayres, ed., “The Spirit of Genius”: Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford: Hudson Hills Press, 1992), 50.

Nicholas H. J. Hall, ed., Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi New York (New York: Colnaghi, 1992), 31.

Mary Newcome-Schleier, Kunst in der Republik Genua, 1528-1815, exh. cat. (Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle, 1992), 93n3.

José Manuel Pita Andrade and María del Mar Borobia Guerrero, Old Masters: Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Madrid: Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1992), 336.

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), 165, (repro.).

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 190.

Joaneath Spicer, ed., Bernardo Strozzi: Master Painter of the Italian Baroque (Baltimore, MD: Walters Art Gallery, 1995), 25-26, (repro.)

Piero Boccardo, review of Bernardo Strozzi: Master Painter of the Italian Baroque, by Joaneath Spicer, ed., Burlington Magazine (1995): 868-870, (repro.).

Richard P. Townsend, review of Bernardo Strozzi: Master Painter of the Italian Baroque, by Joaneath Spicer, ed., Apollo 143, no. 407 (January 1996): 51-52, (repro.).

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 19, 25, 259-69, (repro.).

Susan J. Barnes et al., Van Dyck a Genova: grande pittura e collezionismo, exh. cat. (Milan: Electa, 1997), 206-207, (repro.).

Piero Boccardo, L’ Età di Rubens: Dimore, committenti e collezionisti genovesi, exh. cat. (Milan: Skira, 2004), 248, (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.