King David Before the Ark of the Covenant

Former TitleDavid Marching Before the Ark

Artist Francesco di Stefano Pesellino (Italian (Florentine), 1422 - 1457)

Dateca. 1450

MediumTempera on panel

DimensionsUnframed: 17 1/8 x 19 11/16 inches (43.51 x 50.01 cm)
Framed: 22 x 24 5/8 inches (55.88 x 62.56 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number32-82

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionIn the left foreground a bearded figure of King David, wearing a gold crown, dances on carpet of grass and plants in front of two oxen; the oxen pull a large ark on a cart. In the right foreground are two musicians. In the middle ground, flanking the cart, are two small trees. In the left background is a grassy promontory upon which stands a towered building and several trees.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Nouvelles acquisitions de la collection Goudstikker, Heerengracht 458, Amsterdam, November 8-December 13, 1930; Rotterdam, Kunstkring, December 20, 1930-January 3, 1931, no. 51.

Musical Instruments and Their Portrayal in Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, April 26-June 2, 1946, no. 16.

The Eye Listens: Music in the Visual Arts, Dwight Art Memorial, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, October 23-November 15, 1950, no. 18.

Of Music and Art, Milwaukee Art Institute, September 10-October 24, 1954, no. 102.

Festival of the Bible in the Arts, Temple Emanu El, Houston, Texas, March 11-26, 1961, unnumbered.

Scenes from the Hebrew Scriptures, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, August 2-September 18, 1983, no. 47.

Provenance

With Goudstikker, Amsterdam, by 1930-1932;

Purchased from Goudstikker by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.

Published References

Written attestation by R. van Marle, undated (after 1928), NAMA curatorial files.

Catalogue des nouvelles acquisitions de la collection Goudstikker, exh. cat. (Amsterdam: Goudstikker Gallery, 1930), unpaginated, (repro.).

Bernard Berenson, “Quadri senza casa: il Quattrocento fiorentino, II,” Dedalo 12 (1932): 675, 670, (repro.) [repr. in Hanna Kiel, ed., Homeless paintings of the Renaissance (London: Thames & Hudson, 1969), 170-171, (repro.)].

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.

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), 16.

Alfred Scharf, “Zur Kunst des Francesco Pesellino,” Pantheon 14 (1934): 44, 220.

Bernard Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli 1936), 380.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 169.

Charlton Fortune, Notes on Art for Catholics: Based on the Collection of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Paterson: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1944), 52-53.

Musical Instruments and their Portrayal in Art, exh.cat. (Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1946), 9-10, (repro.).

Emanuel Winternitz, “Music for the Eye: Baltimore Shows It Over Thirty Centuries,” Art News 45 (June 1946): 26, (repro.).

“The Athens in Missouri,” Art News 48 (April 1949): 37.

The Eye Listens: Music in the Visual Arts, exh. cat. (South Hadley, MA: Dwight Art Memorial, Mount Holyoke College, 1950), unpaginated, (repro.).

La Vera Pohl, Of Music and Art, exh. cat. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Milwaukee Art Institute, 1954), unpaginated.

Michel Laclotte, ed., De Giotto à Bellini: les primitifs italiens dans les musées de France, exh. cat. (Paris: Editions des musées nationaux, 1956), 80.

Andor Pigler, Barockthemen, vol. 1 (Budapest: Verl. d. Ungar. Akad. D. Wiss, 1956) 146.

Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, vol. 2, part 1, Iconographie de la Bible (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956), 268-269.

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), 262.

Festival of the Bible in the Arts, exh. cat. (Houston, TX: Temple Emanu EL, 1961), unpaginated, (repro.).

Bernard Berenson, Italian Picture of the Renaissance: Florentine School, vol. 1 (London: Phaidon Press, 1963), 167-168.

Kindlers Malerei Lexikon, vol. 4 (Zurich: Kindler, 1967), 719.

The Loyd Collection of Painting and Drawings at Betterton House, Lockinge near Wantage, Berkshire (London: Bradbury, Agnew, 1967), 35, 35n5.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of pre-nineteenth-century Italian paintings in North American public collections (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 162, 261, 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), 260.

Andor Pigler, Barockthemen, 2^nd ed. (1956; Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1974), 150.

Everett Fahy, “Italian painting before 1500,” Apollo 107 (1978): 387-388.

E.P. Cohn et al., Scenes from the Hebrew Scriptures, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 14, 34, (repro.).

Dizionario enciclopedico dei pittori e degli incisori italiani, vol. 8 (Milan, 1983), 444.

F. Fumi and L. Bellosi, in Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' piuù eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri: nell'edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino, Firenze 1550, eds. Luciano Bellosi and Aldo Rossi (1550; repr., Torino: Einaudi, 1986), 400n1.

Eliot W. Rowlands, Italian paintings: 1300-1800 (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 108-114, (repro.).

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