National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Madonna Enthroned with Saints [right panel]
  • Inscription
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

No overview.

Inscription

upper center on Saint Venantius's nimbus: .SCS.VENANCIVS M[A]RTIRI (Saint Venantius Martyr)

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

Probably commissioned for the high altar of the demolished church of Sant’Antonio Abate fuori Porta Pisana, Fabriano;[1] apparently by the early years of the nineteenth century it was no longer in this church, presumably having passed into a local private collection;[2] Joseph Russell Bailey [1840-1906], 1st Baron Glanusk, Glanusk Park, Breconshire, Wales; by inheritance to his son, Joseph Henry Russell Bailey [1864–1928], 2nd Baron Glanusk, Glanusk Park; sold in 1915;[3] (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 25 July 1916, no. 137, as by Allegretto Nuzi); purchased by Walter Dowdeswell[4] for (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); Carl W. Hamilton [1886–1967], New York, in the early 1920s; (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris), by 1929;[5] sold 15 December 1936 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[6] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] The church, recorded for the first time in 1313, was officiated by the regular canons of Saint Augustine of Saint-Antoine de Vienne, a Hospitaler company founded by Gaston de Dauphiné in 1095 and transformed by Pope Boniface VIII into a religious order in 1297. It enjoyed a very rapid diffusion throughout Europe (see Italo Ruffino, “Canonici regolari di S. Agostino di S. Antonio di Vienne,” in Dizionario degli istituti di Perfezione 2 (1973): 134-141; Adalbert Mischlewski, Grundzüge der Geschichte des Antoniterordens bis zur Ausgang des 15. Jahrhunderts, Bonn, 1976). Romualdo Sassi (Le chiese di Fabriano. Brevi cenni storico – artistici, Fabriano, 1961: 11-12) recalls that the church of Sant’Antonio Abate in Fabriano had three altars, of which presumably the high altar was dedicated to the Madonna and one other to the titular saint. In the late eighteenth century, following the decline of the order, the church was transferred to the hospital, which had used it as a mortuary when the city was struck by an epidemic in 1818. By this time the building must already have been stripped of its movable works of art, even though Amico Ricci (Memorie storiche delle arti e degli artisti della Marca di Ancona, Macerata, 1834: 88) records the continuing presence in the sacristy of the panel of Saint Anthony Abbot with a Group of Devotees now in the Pinacoteca of Fabriano and unanimously attributed to Puccio di Simone (see Fabio Marcelli, Pinacoteca Civica “Bruno Molajoli”, Fano, 1997: 26). The church, as Sassi reports, was demolished in 1834. Richard Offner (A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. III, vol. V, The Fourteenth Century. Bernardo Daddi and his circle, Brattleboro, 1947; 2nd edition by Miklós Boskovits, assisted by Ada Labriola and Martina Ingedaay Rodio, Florence, 2001: 394-399, n. 5) presents the reasons that suggest the provenance of the Washington triptych from the church in Fabriano.

[2] This is suggested by the fact that during the Napoleonic occupation of the Marche (1797-1811) many churches, especially those of religious orders, were expropriated and stripped of their works of art, and by the fact that Luigi Lanzi (Storia pittorica della Italia dal Risorgimento delle Belle Arti fin presso al fine del XVIII secolo (1808), ed. Martino Capucci, Florence, 1968: 266), who records the presence in the church of frescoes signed by Allegretto and dated 136[?] , does not mention the presence of the triptych. The same argument ex silentio can be adduced from Ricci (1834, 88), who claims that even the frescoes formerly situated in the cloister annexed to the church had been lost and similarly fails to mention the triptych: had it been present, it surely would not have escaped his attention.

[3] This information, transmitted by Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:385), was gleaned by Duveen Brothers (see their typewritten record in NGA curatorial files).

[4] Walter Dowdeswell was the agent for Duveen Brothers at this time (see Edward Fowles, Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 64, and passim). The Duveen Brothers “X-Book” entry for the triptych (the painting was X 170) begins with “Purchased from Sotheby’s 25/7/1916” (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 422; see also reel 45, box 133, folder 5; copies in NGA curatorial files). A copy of the sale catalogue in the Frick Art Reference Library, New York (copy in NGA curatorial files), is annotated with Dowdeswell’s name as the buyer.

[5] The “American oil millionaire” Carl W. Hamilton decided in c.1920 to furnish his New York apartment with works of art furnished by the Duveen Brothers; a few years later, however, he returned most of his collection to Duveen (see Fowles 1976, 98-99, 127-130; Maryle Secrest, Duveen. A Life in Art, New York, 2004: 181-184, 368). Joseph Duveen, head of the firm, had the triptych again by at least 19 January 1929, when he responded to a letter originally sent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then on to Hamilton, stating, “The correspondence has been sent to me because Mr. Hamilton no longer possesses the Triptych, which is now in my private collection . . ..” (Duveen Brothers Records, reel 125, box 270, folder 3).

[6] The original bill of sale is in Records of The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, subject files, box 2, NGA archives; copy in NGA curatorial files.

Exhibition History

1926
Sesquicentennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1926.

Bibliography

1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 128, 142, as by Allegretto Nuzi and Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 159, as by Allegretto Nuzi and Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 9, repro., as by Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece and Alegretto Nuzi.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 85, as by Allegretto Nuzi and Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 74, repro., as by Allegretto Nuzi and Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 220, repro., as by Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece and Alegretto Nuzi.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:383-386, II:pl. 276
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 73, no. 17, color repro., as by Master of teh Fabriano Altarpiece and Allegretto Nuzi.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 320, repro.

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