National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: The Presentation of the Virgin
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

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Provenance

Commissioned in 1398[1] for the chapel of San Pietro in Siena Cathedral,[2] where it remained at least until 1482.[3] It is probable, however, that the altarpiece was removed only between 1580 (when a new, richly decorated marble altar was commissioned for the chapel) and 1582 (when the decoration of the new altar was completed). At this time it was then either consigned to the cathedral’s storerooms or sold.[4] H.M. Clark, London, by 1928.[5] Edward Hutton [1874-1969], London.[6] (Wildenstein & Co., New York), by 1950;[7] sold February 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[8] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Gaetano Milanesi, Documenti per la storia dell'arte senese, 3 vols., Siena, 1854: 2:37; Scipione Borghesi and Luciano Banchi, Nuovi documenti per la storia dell'arte senese 1, Siena, 1898: 62; Monica Butzek, "Chronologie," In Die Kirchen von Siena, multi-vol., ed. Waltee Haas and Dethard von Winterfeld, vol. 3, part 1.1.2, Munich, 2006: 102. Payments to Paolo di Giovanni Fei “per la tavola di sancto Piero et sancto Pavolo, per sua fatiga e colori” were made, specifies Monica Butzek (2006), between 1398 and April 1399.

[2] Pietro Lorenzetti’s altarpiece of the Birth of the Virgin, also painted for the Cathedral of Siena in 1342 (see Carlo Volpe, Pietro Lorenzetti, ed. Marco Lucco, Milan, 1989: 152-154), is surmounted, like The Presentation of the Virgin discussed here, by three arches included in a heavy frame. The present appearance of these paintings is misleading, however. Fourteenth-century altarpieces were generally realized on rectangular panels, not silhouetted like these, and integrated above by triangular or trapezoidal gables partially overlapped by the integral frame. See Monika Cämmerer George, Die Rahmung der toskanischen Altarbilder in Trecento, Strasbourg,1966: 144-165; Christoph Merzenich, Vom Schreinerwerk zum Gemälde. Florentiner Altarwerke der ersten Hälfe des Quattrocento, Berlin, 2001: 43-56.

[3] Enzo Carli, Il Duomo di Siena, Genoa, 1979: 85-86.

[4] On 9 September 1579, the Congrega di San Pietro, patron since 1513 of the chapel dedicated to this saint (the second altar from the entrance in the north aisle), commissioned the stonecutters Girolamo del Turco and Pietro di Benedetto da Prato to realize a new marble structure around the altar. This sculptural decoration was completed in April 1582. It is presumed that between the two dates Paolo’s panel, considered antiquated, was removed. See Butzek 2006, 197.

[5] Daily Telegraph Exhibition 1928, 162. Concerning the unknown whereabouts of the painting between 1582 and 1928, a handwritten note on a photograph of the painting, formerly owned by Bernard Berenson (now in the Biblioteca Berenson at Villa I Tatti, Florence), suggests a provenance from the collection at Corsham Court, Wiltshire, which the British diplomat Sir Paul Methuen (1672–1757) had formed in the eighteenth century, and which, by the mid-nineteenth century, had been enriched with paintings from the collection of the Rev. John Sanford (1777-1855) through the 1844 marriage of Sanford’s daughter and sole heir, Anna Horatia Caroline Sanford (1824–1899), to Frederick H.P. Methuen, 2nd baron Methuen (1818-1891). See Benedict Nicolson, "The Sanford Collection," The Burlington Magazine 98 (1955): 207–214. However, this suggestion appears to be in error. James Methuen-Campbell, who inherited Corsham Court in 1994 and has extensively researched the family collections, kindly reviewed the manuscript material for both the Sanford and Methuen collections, and found no reference to the painting (see his e-mail of 15 February 2012, in NGA curatorial files). The painting also does not appear among those disposed of by Sanford on the occasion of two London sales: a sale by private contract under the auspices of George Yates (24 April 1838, and days following), and a sale at Christie & Manson (9 March 1839).

[6] Information given in Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956.

[7] According to the handwritten note on the photograph referenced above (see note 5), the painting was with Wildenstein by October 1950.

[8] The bill of sale (copy in NGA curatorial files) is dated 10 February 1954, and was for fourteen paintings, including Presentation of the Virgin by Bartolo di Fredi; payments by the foundation continued to March 1957.

Exhibition History

1928
Daily Telegraph Exhibition of Antiques and Works of Art, Olympia, London, 1928, no. X1, as by Bartolo di Fredi.

Bibliography

1956
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Colllection 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: 28, repro., as by Bartolo di Fredi.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 35, repro., as by Bartolo di Fredi.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 49
1966
Schiller, Gertrud. Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst. 6 vols. Gütersloh, 1966-1990: 4, pt.2:71.
1966
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 62, fig. 159.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 42, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 126, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:175-177, II:pl. 122
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 299, repro.
1997
Dini, Giulietta Chelazzi, and Alessandro Angelini, Bernardina Sani. Sienese Painting From Duccio to the Birth of the Baroque. New York, 1997:198, 200-201.
2000
Kirsh, Andrea, and Levenson, Rustin S. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies, vol. 1. New Haven, 2000: 88, 90-91, fig. 89-90, color fig. 91.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 12, no. 7, color repro.

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