National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: The Madonna of Humility
  • Inscription
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

No overview.

Inscription

upper center in Virgin's halo: AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DO[MINVS TECVM] (Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; from Luke 1:28)

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

Anonymous collection or dealer, Italy; acquired in the late 19th century by Edward Steinkopff [1837-1906], Lydhurst, Waringlid, Haywards Heath, Sussex;[1] by inheritance to his daughter, Mary Margaret Steinkopff Stewart-Mackenzie [later Baroness Seaforth, d. 1933], Brahan Castle, Highland, Scotland. family of the barons of Castelmuro, by 1935;[2] (Rudolf Heinemann, Lugano); (M. Knoedler & Co., New York and London); purchased 30 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[3] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] The date of Edward Steinkopff's death is given in the Knoedler prospectus, in NGA curatorial files. A sale of the collection of "the late Edward Steinkopff" took place on 26 February 1909 at Christie's in London. Steinkopff's daughter (and only child) was married in 1899 to James Alexander Francis Humberston Stewart-Mackenzie, who was created the 1st baron Seaforth in 1921 and who died in 1923.

[2] A photograph in the archives of the Museo di Castello Sforzesco in Milan (no. 2430 D; a print is also preserved in the photographic collection of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence) shows the NGA painting repainted, probably after suffering a radical cleaning most likely having occurred at the time of the change in ownership in the mid-1930s. The photograph probably dates before 28 April 1936, when the director of the museum in Milan, Giorgio Nicodemi, wrote a letter (in NGA curatorial files), documenting the fact that the painting, which he hoped would be donated to the Castello Sforzesco, had already been shown to him. According to a note attached to the negative of the photograph in the photographic archive of the museum, the painting, owned by the family of the barons of Castelmuro, was at that time (1935) exhibited at the Museo Navale in Milan. According to a letter from R. Heinemann, Lugano, to C. Henschel of the firm M. Knoedler & Co., New York (in Knoedler files, copy in NGA curatorial files), the painting was shipped to New York on 29 April 1936.

[3] The date of purchase is given in the Mellon collection records, in NGA curatorial files.

Exhibition History

1935
Museo Navale, Milan, 1935.

Bibliography

1937
Cortissoz, Royal. An Introduction to the Mellon Collection. Boston, 1937: repro. p. 2
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 5, as by Fra Angelico.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 57, as by Fra Angelico.
1944
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 22, color repro., as by Fra Angelico.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 15, repro., as by Fra Angelico.
1951
Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 33, repro. 31, as by Fra Angelico.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 8
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 1, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 12, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:13-14, II: repro. pl. 8, as Attributed to Fra Angelico.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 86, no. 41, color repro., as by Fra Angelico.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 19, 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: 9-13, color repro.

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