National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel

Overview

This work comes from the front predella, the separate horizontal band of narrative scenes at the base of the great Maestà altarpiece that depicts Mary, the patron saint of Siena, in majesty with angels and saints. A contract of 1308 states that the huge altarpiece for the cathedral of Siena was to be painted entirely by Duccio di Buoninsegna; it is probable, however, that the artist took on assistants to help carry out the project.

In the Nativity, Duccio employed conventional Byzantine elements, such as the cave setting, the glowing colors, and the multi–scene composition. Mary is shown in the usual Byzantine manner — larger than the figures around her yet — her large size also underscores the importance the Virgin held for the Sienese. The bracketing side panels portray Old Testament prophets holding scrolls that foretell the birth of Christ.

Duccio's unique contribution to the Byzantine style is his use of elegantly flowing lines, most evident here in the drapery folds and mountain ridges. The soft, undulating brushstrokes downplay the austerity of the earlier style, as do the sensitive rendering of the Virgin's face and the individual characterizations of Isaiah and Ezekiel, expressing a true sense of human feeling.

Inscription

left section, center left on scroll: ECCE VIRGO CONCIPIET & PARIET FILIU & VOCABITUR NOMEN EIUS EMANUEL (Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel), from Isaiah 7:14; middle section, center right on scroll: Anuncio uobis gaudiu magnum... (Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy), from Luke 2:10; right section, center right on scroll: VIDI PORTA I DOMO DOM CLAUSA VIR NO TRSIBIT P[ER] EA DOMIN SOLUS ITRAT ET IT P[ER] EA[M] (I saw a door in the house of the Lord which was closed and no man went through it. The Lord only enters and goes through it), a variant of Ezekial 44:2

Marks and Labels

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Provenance

NGA 1937.1.8 formed part of the front predella of Duccio's double-sided altarpiece the Maestà, which was in the course of execution by October 1308 and was placed on the high altar of the Cathedral of Siena on 30 June 1311;[1] the altarpiece was removed from the cathedral in 1506, stored, and then displayed on the wall of the left transept, close to the altar of Saint Sebastian, but probably by this time the predella and gable panels had already been separated from it;[2] the altarpiece was moved to the church of Sant'Ansano in 1777, where its two sides were separated and returned to the cathedral;[3] in 1798 the gables and eight panels of the predella were reported as being kept in the Sacristy of the cathedral, whereas the rest, including NGA 1937.1.8, must already have been in private hands.[4] probably with Charles Fairfax Murray [1849-1919], London and Florence, in the early 1880s,[5] who seems to have been the seller, in 1884, to the Gemäldegalerie der Königliche Museen, Berlin; deaccessioned 1937[6] and exchanged with (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[7] purchased 26 April 1937 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[8] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] The documents are published in Jane Immler Satkowski, Duccio di Boninsegna. The Documents and Early Sources, ed. and with an introd. by Hayden B.J. Maginnis, Atlanta, 2000: 69-81, and in Allesandro Bagnoli, et al., Duccio Alle origini dellla piture senese, Milan, 2003.: 577-579.

[2] See Alessandro Lisini, “Notizie di Duccio pittore e della sua celebre ancona,” Bullettino senese di storia patria 5 (1898): 24-25. According to this author, in 1506 the altarpiece "venne confinata in certi mezzanini dell'Opera [del Duomo]...e per introdurvela fu necessario di togliere tutte le cuspidi e gli accessori" ("was stored in certain passages in the Opera del Duomo...and to enter there it was necessary to cut off all the pinnacles and accessories"). This latter term presumably comprises the predella. Lisini states that only "sulla fine del secolo" - i.e., at the end of the sixteenth century - was the painting brought back to the cathedral. In Giovanna Ragionieri's opinion (in Bagnoli et al. 2003, 212), however, the altarpiece had already been returned to the cathedral in 1536 and installed near the altar of Saint Sebastian.

[3] See Peleo Bacci, Francesco da Valdambrino emulo del Ghiberti e collaboratore di Jacopo della Quercia, Siena, 1936: 185-186. The author does not mention the gables and predella; these had probably been separated earlier from the rest of the altarpiece (see the previous note). After the separation of the two sides of the main panel, the front with the image of the Madonna and Child enthroned in Majesty surrounded by saints and angels was hung in its former place in the left transept and the narrative scenes of the back in the opposite transept.

[4] See Bacci 1936, 187. Vittorio Lusini, Il Duomo di Siena, 2 vols., Siena, 1911-1939: 1:77, specifies that, apart from the twelve scenes of the gable, eight panels of the predella were present in the sacristy at this time, i.e., one more than the predella panels now preserved in the Museo dell'Opera in Siena. The identity of this eighth scene is uncertain, but presumably it was different from those that reappeared in private hands in the second half of the nineteenth century.

[5] No source, as far as Miklós Boskovits knows, claims that Fairfax Murray actually owned the painting; however, James Stubblebine plausibly suggests this (Duccio di Buoninsegna and his school, Princeton, 1979: 37). In fact, in 1883 the English painter-dealer sold two other panels of the predella of the Maestà to the National Gallery in London, those representing the Annunciation and the Healing of the Man Born Blind (nos. 1139, 1140). In 1886 he sold four additional panels of the predella to Robert Benson in London (one of these is NGA 1939.1.141). It seems that he initially had hoped to sell them all to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and had tried to convince the gallery to purchase them, offering to give one of the panels as his gift. Significantly, Eduard Dobbert (“Duccio’s Bild 'Die Geburt Christi' in der Königlichen Gemälde - Galerie zu Berlin,” Jakrbuch der Berliner Museen 6 (1885): 153-163) thanked Fairfax Murray for having helped him with information in his hypothetical reconstruction of the Maestà.

[6] Königliche Museen zu Berlin, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Berlin, 1891: 77, as no. 1062A. The painting is mentioned as having been relinquished by the Gemäldegalerie ("1937 abgegeben") in the museum's Gesamtverzeichnis, Berlin, 1996: 601. Helmut Ruhemann, The Cleaning of Painting, London, 1968: 41, remembers that the painting was "exchanged [...] for an average Holbein," and Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:172 n. 12, quotes a letter of the same restorer to the National Gallery of Art, according to which the Duccio predella panel "was exchanged in the 1930s by the Gemäldegalerie for a painting by Cranach." This was evidently a slip of the pen; the exchanged picture was the Portrait of a Man with Lute by Holbein, no. 2154 in the Berlin gallery, which came from an American private collection and was acquired by the Gemäldegalerie in 1937 (Gesamtverzeichnis, Berlin, 1996: 60); see the following note.

[7] Duveen Brothers wrote to the director of the paintings department at the Berlin museum on 26 February 1937, offering the portrait by Holbein (then “said to be . . . of Jean de Dinteville,” from Henry Goldman’s collection) in exchange for two paintings in Berlin, this painting by Duccio and the Fra Filippo Lippi Madonna and Child, also in the National Gallery of Art (NGA 1939.1.290; Miklós Boskovits and David Alan Brown, Italian paintings of the Fifteenth Century, Washington, D.C. and New York, 2003: 401-405). Bernard Berenson’s opinion about the painting came in a letter dated 15 March 1937. By April, Duveen’s offices in Paris and New York were exchanging messages concerning conservation work on the painting, and David Finley had seen the painting for Andrew Mellon by early May. Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 48, box 139, folder 4; reel 92, box 237, folder 23; reel 189, box 334, folder 2; reel 192, box 237, folder 23. See also Duveen Brothers, Inc., Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America, New York, 1941: 6.

[8] The Mellon Trust purchase date is according to Mellon collection records in NGA curatorial files and David Finley's notebook (donated to the National Gallery of Art in 1977, now in Gallery Archives).

Exhibition History

Bibliography

1941
Duveen 1941, fig. 6.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 59.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 100.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 4, repro.
1957
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 5
1959
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Early Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Three in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 14, color repro.
1960
The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 10, as Nativity with Two Prophets.
1962
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Treasures from the National Gallery of Art, New York, 1962: 10, color repro.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 297, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 44
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:4, color repro.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 37, repro.
1974
Pesenti, Franco Renzo. "Dismembered works of art - Italian painting." In An Illustrated Inventory of Famous Dismembered Works of Art: European Painting. Paris, 1974: 20, 26-27, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 112, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:168-172, II:pl. 119
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 67, no. 8, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 136, repro.
1992
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 11, repro.
1996
Gordon, Dillian. “Duccio (di Buoninsegna).” In The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner. 36 vols. London, 1996: 9:344.
1997
Shaw-Eagle, Joanna. "Christ's Birth Gave Birth to Astounding Images: Gallery Glitters with holy Masterpieces." Washington Times (December 21, 1997): D5.
1998
Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. "Virgin/Virginity." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:906.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 2-3, 6-7, no. 2, color repros.
2006
Hartt, Frederick and David G. Wilkins. History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, 2006: 105-107, color fig. 4.3, 4.8.
2010
Giorgi, Rosa. “L’iconografia della Natività nella tradizione e la novità del Lippi.” In Filippo Lippi: La Natività, exh. cat. Museo Diocesano, Milan, 2010: 55-57, color figs. 2, 3.
2011
Gordon, Dillian. The Italian Paintings Before 1400. National Gallery Catalogues. London, 2011: 174-175, under no. NG1330, color fig. 1.

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