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

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Provenance

Said to have been acquired in Italy by "the travelling Earl of Exeter," John Cecil, 5th earl of Exeter [d. 1700], Burghley House, Northamptonshire, between 1690 and 1700;[1] by inheritance, probably to his son, John Cecil, 6th earl of Exeter [1674-1721], Burghley House; by inheritance, probably to his son, John Cecil, 7th Earl of Exeter [d. 1722], Burghley House; by inheritance, probably to his brother, Brownlow Cecil, 8th earl of Exeter [d. 1754], Burghley House; by inheritance, probably to his son, Brownlow Cecil, 9th earl of Exeter [1725-1793], Burghley House; by inheritance, probably to his nephew, Henry Cecil, 1st marquess [1801] of Exeter [1754-1804], Burghley House;[2] by inheritance to his son, Brownlow Cecil, 2nd marquess of Exeter [1795-1867], Burghley House; by inheritance to his son, William Alleyne Cecil, 3rd marquess of Exeter [1825-1895], Burghley House; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 9 June 1888, no. 297, as by Cima da Conegliano); Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex; purchased 1927 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold March 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] According to Tancred Borenius, Catalogue of Italian Pictures...Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson, London, 1914: 151, no. 76.

[2] In a letter of 12 November 1984 to Suzannah Fabing, Carol Dowd of the Getty Provenance Index provides references, the earliest from 1797, to a painting described as a "half-length of the Virgin Reading by Garofalo" that is probably the same as NGA 1939.1.354: A History or Description...of Burghley House, the Seat of the Right Honorable the Earl of Exeter, 1797: 71-72; Thomas Blore, A Guide to Burghley House, Northamptonshire, the seat of the Marquis of Exeter containing a catalogue of all the paintings, antiquities, etc. with biographical notices of the artists, 1815: 94; John P. Neale, Views of The Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, 6 vols., London, 1820: 3:unpaginated, entry for Burghley House, Northamptonshire. All the references place the painting in Burghley House.

[3] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of twenty-four paintings, including NGA 1939.1.354, is dated 9 March 1937; the provenance is given as "Benson Collection" (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

1894
Exhibition of Venetian Art, New Gallery, London, 1894-1895, no. 49.
1910
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1910, no. 14, as A Female Saint Reading.
1912
A Collection of Pictures of the Early Venetian School and Other Works of Art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1912, no. 12 (no. 17 and pl. XV in illustrated catalogue titled Early Venetian Pictures and Other Works of Art).
1927
Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 39, as A Lady Reading.
1939
Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 36, as Lady Reading.

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. 76.
1941
Duveen 1941, fig. 93, as A Saint Reading.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 35-36, pl. III, as A Lady Reading.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 248, repro. 82, as A Saint Reading.
1944
Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 48, repro.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 89, repro., as A Saint Reading.
1952
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 50, color repro., as A Saint Reading.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 151, repro., as A Saint Reading.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 23
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:166, color repro.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 16, repro.
1968
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 52, fig. 129.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 56, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:116-117, II:pl. 79
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 203, no. 242, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 75, repro.
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: 188-193, color repro.

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