Alexander the Great Threatened by His Father

probably 1700/1705

Donato Creti

Artist, Bolognese, 1671 - 1749

A crowned man holding up a sword lunges toward another man who wears a helmet and holds up both hands in this vertical painting. This happens in front of a long banquet table set with a rumpled white cloth. About a dozen people react or cling to each other on the far side of the table and more gather farther in the background. Most of the people have pale, peachy skin and wear tunics, robes, and dresses in shades of celestial and sky blue, pale yellow, forest green, peach, or white. The man holding the sword has a furrowed brow, and his lips are parted. He wears a molded yellow breastplate over seafoam-green, knee-length tunic. A marine-blue cloak patterned with a gold design wraps loosely around his shoulders, and he wears toeless, shin-high sandals on bare legs. A white pearl earring hangs from the ear we can see, and more pearls are on his breastplate. He holds the sword up with his right hand, farther from us, and holds the sheath with the other. He steps to our left, toward the man who wears royal-blue armor with gold trim, including a gold lion’s head at the shoulder. His silver helmet has gold decorations and a fluffy sky-blue feather. He faces our right so his face is in shadow, but his mouth is open. He steps onto his right leg, closer to us, as he leans back with his hands raised. A vivid red cloth flutters from his shoulders to his knees. The table behind this pair is on a platform with five steps. A man lies on the green and white checked floor on our side of the steps with his head coming toward us. He grips an urn with one arm and holds his other hand out. One foot is raised and the other knee bent so that foot is on the ground. Silver urns, trays, and a chalice sit on the steps to our right. Two people in the crowd on the far side of the table stand out. One is an ashen-faced woman wearing a crown to the left, who clutches another woman as she looks at the conflict. The other person is to the right and has dark brown skin and short, dark hair. That person wears an iron collar around the neck over a white pleated shirt and a sage-green vest edged in gold. The space behind the table is enclosed with a person-high wall topped with thick, dark green columns. A man to our left stands above the melee and reaches for another person, presumably to rescue them from the chaos. The space beyond opens into a tall, light-filled, white stone-clad space where people line balconies. Several spears and the tops of people’s heads indicate another group on the far side of the wall. A green curtain is pulled up into the top right corner of the composition.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 129.7 x 97 cm (51 1/16 x 38 3/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.6

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Count Alessandro Fava; his son, Count Pietro Ercole Fava [1667 or 1669-1744], Bologna, by 1739;[1] his son, Carlo Fava [d. 1790], Bologna, until at least c. 1770.[2] (Julius H. Weitzner [1896-1986], New York), by 1938;[3] purchased 1952 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Giampietro Zanotti, Storia dell'Accademia Clementina di Bologna, 2 vols., Bologna, 1739 (reprinted 1977): 2:106, places the painting in Palazzo Fava; it is listed in Pietro Ercole's posthumous inventory of 1745, published in Giovanni Campori, Raccolta di cataloghi ed inventari inediti, Modena, 1870 (reprinted Bologna 1975): 602. Alessandro Fava was Creti's first patron and collected many of the artist's drawings.
[2] It appears in the list of paintings in Bolognese houses compiled in the 1760s and 1770s by Marcello Oretti, "Le pitture...della Città di Bologna", 3 vols., Biblioteca Comunale, Bologna, MS B104, in Marcello Oretti e il patrimonio artistico privato bolognese. (Documenti 22), edited by Emilia Calbi and Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian, Bologna, 1984: 90. According to Giuseppe Guidicini, Cose notabili della città di Bologna, 5 vols., 1868-1873: 2:186-188, Carlo Fava had no heirs and the palace passed to another branch of the family.
[3] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century, London, 1973: 101; and Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:148.
[4] Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-1956, Washington, D.C., 1956: 62. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/162.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1980

  • Alexander the Great: History and Legend in Art, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, 1980, not in cat.

1981

  • The Search for Alexander, trav. exh., ptg. shown: Natl. Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston; M.H. de Young Mus., San Fran.; New Orleans Mus. of Art, 1981-1982, and Royal Ontario Mus., Toronto, 1983, no. 23 and no. S-3 in cats.

Bibliography

1739

  • Zanotti, Giampietro. Storia dell'Accademia Clementina di Bologna. 2 vols. Bologna, 1739: 106-107 (reprinted 1977).

1769

  • Crespi, Luigi. Vita de' pittori bolognesi non descritte nella Felsina Pittrice. Rome, 1769: 253.

1809

  • Lanzi, Luigi. Storia pittorica della Italia. 6 vols. Bassano, 1809: 5:178 (English ed., London, 1828).

1907

  • Voss, Hermann. "Creti, Donato." In Thieme-Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 8(1913):100.

1932

  • Alcsuti, Caterina. "Donata Creti, pittore bolognese (1671-1749)." Il comune di Bologna, rivista mensile municipale 9 (September 1932): 18.

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 62, no. 21, repro., as The Quarrel.

1959

  • Roli, Renato. "Donato Creti." Arte Antica e Moderna 7 (1959): 332, fig. 149a.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 229, repro., as The Quarrel.

1960

  • Miller, Dwight. "Donato Creti." In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Edited by Alberto Maria Ghisalberti. 82+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 30(1984):749-750.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961:,164, repro. pl. 158.

1963

  • Roli, Renato. "Dipinti inediti di Donata Creti." Arte Antica e Moderna 23 (1963): 248, 249.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 34, as The Quarrel.

1967

  • Roli, Renato. Donato Creti. Milan, 1967: 25, 26-27, 92, 98, no. 101, fig. 13, color pl. I.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 28, repro., as The Quarrel.

1971

  • Faces and Figures of the Baroque. Autumn Exhibition. Exh. cat. Heim Gallery, London, 1971: 10.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 59, 479, 647.

1973

  • Roli, Renato. "Drawings by Donato Creti: Notes for a Chronology." Master Drawings 11 (1973): 31, no. 21.

  • Roli, Renato. Donato Creti: 46 disegni inediti. Bologna, 1973: under no. 12.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 100-101, fig. 185.

1974

  • Ruggeri, Ugo. "Nuovi disegni di Donato Creti." Musei ferraresi Bollettino annuale 4 (1974): 19.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 88, repro., as The Quarrel.

1977

  • Roli, Renato. Pittura bolognese 1650-1800. Dal Cignani ai Gandolfi.Bologna, 1977: 117, 254, fig. 192a.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:147-149; 2:pl. 104, as Philip of Macedon Menacing His Son Alexander.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 344, no. 470, color repro., as The Quarrel.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 107, repro., as The Quarrel.

1988

  • Roli, Renato. "Una insolita 'Veronica' di Donato Creti e altre aggiunte." In Scritti di storia dell'arte in onore di Raffaello Causa. Naples, 1988: 328.

1989

  • Riccomini, Marco. "A Rediscovered Bozzetto by Donata Creti." The Burlington Magazine 131 (1989): 420.

  • Roli, Renato. "La pittura in Emilia Romagna nella prima metà del settecento." In La pittura in Italia. Edited by Mina Gregori and Erich Schleier. 2 vols. Rev. ed. Milan, 1989: 1:259.

1996

  • De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 77-83, color repro. 79.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 238, no. 187, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20177697

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