A Dominican Preaching

c. 1470

Agnolo degli Erri

Painter, Emilian, active 1440s - 1497

A person wearing a black hood and cloak over a white long-sleeved garment stands in a wooden box, a pulpit, and speaks to a crowd gathered below in this vertical painting. The people all have pale skin tinged with green and pink cheeks. The preacher stands along the right side of the painting, his mouth open and both hands held up. He faces our left almost in profile, and his forehead, eyes, and mouth are deeply lined. Seventeen men and women sit or stand across the front of the crowd or at the far side of it. They wear garments in rose pink, fog gray, sapphire blue, vivid red, or black. Five of them sit along a wooden rail or bench closest to us with their backs facing out. Between this and the standing people on the far side of the crowd are dozens of heads, mostly covered with white cloths though a few have blond hair. Buildings in gray, pale pink, or white stone fill the background except for a few patches of sky, which are shiny gold. The torso of a person holding an open book floats high above the crowd, cut off by the top edge of the painting. The person wears a dark blue robe over a pink garment and is surrounded by a ring made of the red wings of winged, blond baby heads with gold halos. Gold rays radiate out from the ring.

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned c. 1470 for the old church of San Domenico, Modena; church demolished and rebuilt 1708, and its paintings perhaps dispersed at that time.[1] Baron Michele Lazzaroni, Rome, by 1925.[2] Mrs. Felix Warburg, New York, by 1936;[3] gift 1941 to NGA.
[1] L. Vedriani, in Raccolta de' pittori modonesi più celebri, Modena, 1662: 23, noted that the St. Thomas Aquinas altarpiece was in a chapel on the rood screen of San Domenico.
[2] It was first noted in the Lazzaroni collection by Bernard Berenson, "Nove pitture in cerca di un' attribuzione," Dedalo 5 (1925): 607.
[3] Bernard Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento, Milan, 1936: 323.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2014

  • Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, 2014-2015, no. 45a, repro.

Bibliography

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 251, repro. 156, as by Domenico Morone.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 48.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 41, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:281, as by Domenico Morone, S. Thomas Aquinas preaching in a square.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 124, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:174-175; 2:pl. 121.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 150, repro.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 502.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 255-260, color repro.

2008

  • Pujmanová, Olga, with the assistance of Petr Pribyl. Italian Painting c. 1330-1550. I. National Gallery in Prague. II. Collections in the Czech Republic. Illustrated Summary catalogue. Prague, 2008: 269.

2012

  • Howard, Peter. “Preaching to the Mob: Space, Ideas, and Persuasion in Renaissance Florence.” In Mobs: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry. Edited by Nancy van Deusen and Leonard Michael Koff. Leiden, 2012: x, 203, 223, fig. 1.

Wikidata ID

Q20173955

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