National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: The Adoration of the Magi
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

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Provenance

John Rushout, 6th bt. and 2nd baron Northwick [1770-1859], Northwick Park, near near Moreton-in-the-Marsh, originally Worcestershire, now Gloucestershire, and Thirlestane House, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire;[1] (his estate sale, Phillips, at Thirlestane House, 26 July-30 August 1859, 10th day [10 August], no. 973, as The Adoration of the Kings by Gentile da Fabriano); (Daniell, London);[2] sold to William Fuller Maitland [1813-1876], Stansted Hall, Stansted, Essex;[3] by inheritance to his son, William Fuller Maitland [1844-1932], Stansted Hall; sold after 1893 to (Robert Langton Douglas, London);[4] Dr. Eduard Simon [1864-1929], Berlin, by 1914;[5] (his estate sale, Cassirer and Helbing, Berlin, 11 October 1929, no. 3); (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[6] purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[7] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] On this collection see Frank Herrmann, The English as Collector. A Documentary Chrestomathy, London, 1972: 320-326, and Oliver Bradbury and Nicholas Penny, "The picture collecting of Lord Northwick: Part I and Part II," Burlington Magazine (August and October 2002): 485-496 and 606-617. The fact that Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols., London, 1854: 3:195-212, does not mention the painting in describing his visit to Thirlestane House does not mean that it was not there; in fact the eminent connoisseur could not make notes, as he himself informs us, of more than 200 of the some 800 pictures seen during his short stay.

[2] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:222.

[3] Catalogue of Pictures at Stansted Hall, 1872: 8, as by Gentili [sic] da Fabriano. The painting is already cited by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy, from the II to the XVI Century, 3 vols., London, 1864-1866: 3(1866):80 n. 6) as owned by Maitland. Not included in the sale of the collection on 10 May 1879 at Christie, Manson & Woods, London, it remained with the collector's son and heir.

[4] The painting is listed in the 1893 Catalogue of Pictures at Stansted Hall as number 17, by Gentili da Fabriano. See also Max J. Friedlander, Die Sammlung Dr. Eduard Simon, Berlin, 1929: 22, no. 3, and Denys Sutton, "Robert Langton Davis. Part 2," Apollo 109, no. 207 (May 1979): 373; according to Friedlander the painting was acquired by Douglas from "Stanstead [sic] House."

[5] The painting is described in the catalogue of the Berlin Ausstellung (1914, no. 123) as being in the Simon collection, on which see Barbara Paul, "Das Kollektionieren ist die edelste aller Leidenschaften," Kritische Berichte 21, no. 3 (1993): 51-53. The acquisition was probably a fairly recent one. Edward Hutton (in Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy..., 3rd ed., ed Edward Hutton, 3 vols, London and New York, 1908-1909: 3:126 n. 8) was unaware of it and erroneously identified the ex-Maitland Adoration as the one that during his time belonged to the collection of Richard von Kaufmann in Berlin (today in the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo). Tancred Borenius (in Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy..., 2nd ed., ed. Langton Douglas and Tancred Borenius, 6 vols., London, 1903-1914: 5(1914):176 n. 6) also did not know the whereabouts of the painting.

[6] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 143, box 288, folder 1; copies in NGA curatorial files.

[7] The original invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Exhibition History

1876
South Kensington Museum, London, 1876 (according to the Duveen prospectus, in NGA curatorial files).
1914
Ausstellung von Werken Alter Kunst aus dem Privatbesitz von Mitgliedern des Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums-Vereins, Königlichen Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 1914, no. 123.
2005
Masterpieces in Miniature: Italian Manuscript Illumination from the J. Paul Getty Museum, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2005-2006, not in brochure.

Bibliography

1941
Duveen 1941, fig. 39.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 83-84.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 118.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 16, repro.
1957
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): 30, fig. 24
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.): 20, color repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 59
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 51, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 154, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:222-223, II:pl. 150
1979
Sutton, Denys. "Robert Langton Douglas. Part II." Apollo 109 (May 1979): 373 [109], 375 [111] pl. X.
1979
Watson, Ross. National Gallery of Art. London, 1979: 22, color fig. 6.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 80, no. 33, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 177, repro.
2003
Boskovits, Miklós, David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2003: 333-337, color repro.

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