Assumption of the Virgin with Old Testament Figures

Artist Gaetano Gandolfi (Italian, 1734 - 1802)

Date1776-1779

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 37 x 53 5/8 inches (93.98 x 136.22 cm)
Framed: 50 x 65 inches (127 x 165.1 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: acquired through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Larrick Ward

Object numberF92-1

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionThe composition, organized within a hemispherical format, is composed of two main registers of figures. In the center of the upper register is a woman, the Virgin, wearing robes of light blue and white and resting upon a cloud bank. Putti and angels support and accompany her. She looks up to the left towards two seated male figures representing Christ and God. The scene is witnessed by other figures on either side of the Virgin who sit or recline on clouds. Below is the lower register, which is comprised of various Old Testament figures, including Moses, a bearded man holding stone tablets; King David, a young man dressed in a pink mantle and playing the harp; and Joshua, who wears a salmon cape and holds a sword and shield. A cerulean sky is seen through the gap in the clouds.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Italian Paintings, Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, New York, January 14-February 10, 1992, no. 15.

Bella Pittura: The Art of the Gandolfi, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 18-September 6, 1993; The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, September 30-November 28, 1993, no. 49.

Gallery Label

Here, in Gandolfi's Assumption of the Virgin, we see a final burst of Italian Baroque energy before the advent of the new discipline and restraint of Neoclassicism. The Virgin is shown ascending into heaven, hailed by the Archangel Gabriel with a palm. Among the Old Testament figures below, the most prominent are Joshua with his sword, Moses with the tablets of the Law, and David with his harp. This is a finished study for one-half of a fresco in the cupola of the church of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna.

Provenance

Private collection, Berlin, possibly after 1918;

With Frieda Hintze, Berlin, possibly by 1939 [1];

Private collection, South America, possibly by 1940 [2];

Possibly by descent to Mrs. Pallavicini, Buenos Aires, Argentina, by January 11, 1991 [3];

Purchased at her sale, Important Paintings by Old Masters, Christie, Manson and Woods, New York, January 11, 1991, lot 81, by Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, London, 1991-1992;

Purchased from Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1992.

NOTES:

[1] According to Erich Schleier, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, in a letter dated August 21, 1992, NAMA curatorial files, Hintze probably sold the painting sometime between the start of her career in the 1920s and the outbreak of World War II.

[2] Ian Kennedy, former NAMA curator, in conversation, 1993.

[3] According to Ian Kennedy, in an email to MacKenzie Mallon, July 13, 2013, NAMA curatorial files, he saw the painting in the home of Mrs. Pallavicini in Buenos Aires just prior to her consignment of it to Christie’s. Mrs. Pallavicini told him her family brought the painting to Argentina from Italy in the 1930s.

Published References

Renato Roli, Pittura Bolognese, 1650—1800: Dal Cignani ai Gandofi (Bologna: ALFA, 1977), 72n41, (repro.).

Sammlung Schloss Fachsenfeld : Zeichnungen, Bozzetti und Aquarelle aus fünf Jahrhunderten in Verwahrung der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, exh. cat. (Stuttgart: Graphische Sammlung Staatsgalerie, 1978), 132, 134.

Mimi Cazort and Catherine Johnston, Bolognese Drawings in North American Collections, 1500-1800, exh. cat. (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1982), 146.

Jacob Bean and William Griswold, 18th Century Italian Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990), 70, 73.

Old Master, nineteenth century European and American Works on Paper and paintings from the Estate of E. Maurice Bloch, Part II (New York: Christie, Manson and Woods, January 9, 1991), 11.

Important Paintings by Old Masters (New York: Christie, Manson and Woods, January 11, 1991), 144-45, (repro.).

Jean-Luc Baroni, An Exhibition of Master Drawings, exh. cat. (New York: Colnaghi, 1991), unpaginated.

Frederick A. den Broeder, Old Master Drawings from the Collection of Joseph F. McCrindle, exh. cat. (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1991), 152, 152n2, (repro.).

Francis Russell, ed., Christie’s: Review of the Season 1991 (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, 1991), 21, (repro.).

Italian Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, 1992), unpaginated, (repro.).

Roger Ward, “Gandolfi’s Assumption Joins Collection,” Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (October 1992): 2, (repro.).

Prisco Bagni, I Gandofli: Affreschi, dipinti, bozzetti, disegni (Bologna: Nuoava Alfa, 1992), 684-85, (repro.).

Mimi Cazort, Bella Pittura: The Art of the Gandolfi, exh. cat. (Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, 1993), 17, 71, 77-79, 91, 92, (repro.).

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), 108.

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), 130, 194, (repro.).

Frederick A. den Broeder, review of Bella Pittura: The Art of the Gandofi, by Mimi Cazort, Drawing 15 (March-April 1994): 135.

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), 21, 463-470.

“A Gandolfi Resurrected,” Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (November 2002): unpaginated, (repro.).

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