National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Tobias and the Angel
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

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Provenance

Alexander Barker [d. 1873], London, by 1868;[1] (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 19-21 June 1879, 3rd day, no. 498, as by A. Pollaiuolo); (Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London); presumably Colonel William Cornwallis-West; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 23 April 1887, no. 78, as by Antonio Pollaiuolo);[2] purchased by (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London and New York) for Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex; sold 1927 with the Benson collection to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] sold May 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] The painting is listed as the property of Alexander Barker in the catalogue of the National Exhibition in Leeds, held in 1868. Since, on the other hand, it is not mentioned by Gustav Waagen in his descriptions of the Barker collection (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols, London, 1854: 2:125; Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London, 1857: 71-79), it may have been acquired only after 1857. On Alexander Barker, see John Fleming, "Art Dealing in the Risorgimento. Part 2," The Burlington Magazine 121, no. 917 (August 1979): 505-506.

[2] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:259 n. 4. The Getty Provenance Index provides the information that the seller, unidentified in the sale catalogue, was presumably Cornwallis-West. Robert Henry Benson's notes on the painting's history (transcript provided in 1976 by his grandson, Peter Wake, and in NGA curatorial files) read: "Bought at Christie's for about 275 Pounds -in the same sale was a Signorelli 'Christ in the House of Simon' (?). I wanted both, but Henry Doyle, then director of the Irish National Gallery came up and proposed that we should not oppose each other and if I would give up bidding for the Signorelli, he would not oppose me for the Filippino - I was miserable at losing the Signorelli until Fairfax Murray got me the 'Madonna of the Casa Tommassi' on a gold ground from Cortona."

[3] The sale of this well-known collection caused an enormous stir; see for example Tancred Borenius, "The Benson Collection," Apollo 6 (1927): 65-70; Frank E. Washburn Freund, "Die Sammlung Benson," Der Cicerone 19 (1927): 495-502.

[4] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of thirteen paintings and one sculpture, including NGA 1939.1.229, is dated 18 May 1936; the provenance is given as "Benson Coll'n" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

Exhibition History

1868
National Exhibition of Works of Art, Leeds, 1868, no. 25, as by Antonio Pollaiuolo.
1894
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1894, no. 156.
1910
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1910, no. 19.
1919
Exhibition of Florentine Painting before 1500, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1919, no. 25 (no. 25 and pl. XXV in illustrated catalogue published 1920).
1927
Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 110.
1932
Exhibition of Italian Renaissance Art, Wadsworth Atheneum and Morgan Memorial, Hartford, 1932, no. 3.
1979
Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 98.

Bibliography

1914
Benson, Robert Henry. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex. London, privately printed, 1914: no. 32.
1941
Duveen 1941, fig. 107.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 106.
1941
"World Masterpieces Lend Supreme Distinction to National Gallery of Art." Washington Star. 16 March 1941:F6
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 246, repro. 129.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 57, repro.
1951
Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 44-47, repro.
1952
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 30, color repro.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 71, repro.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 300, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 75
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:52, color repro.
1966
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 135, fig. 369.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 66, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 194, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:258-259, II:pl. 175
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 97, no. 57, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 228, repro.
1998
Gibson, Sarah S. and Alicia Craig Faxon. "Journey/Flight." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art, edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:445.
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: 383-387, color repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 19, no. 13, color repros.
2009
Philpot, Elizabeth. "Old Testament Apocryphal Images in European Art." Ph.D. diss., University of Gothenburg (2009): 148-149, color pl. 4.

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