Fra Filippo Lippi

Filippo, Fra

Florentine, c. 1406 - 1469

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Italian Renaissance painter (c. 1406–1469)

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Two men are situated inside a coral-red building that fills the left two-thirds of this composition, and two men are shown in a body of water in a landscape to our right in this horizontal painting. The building recedes sharply into the space of the landscape without seeming to be part of it, and the men in the water seem a little too large in relation to the pool, trees, and the building to our left. The men all have pale skin and wear ivory-white robes. The red, arched building spans the entire height of the painting. Inside, a bearded man with a halo sits on a bench facing our right in profile as he holds up his right hand toward the cleanshaven man kneeling in front of him. Short, gold rays emanate from the younger man’s shoulders as he looks up at the older man with his hands tucked into his voluminous sleeves. In the landscape to our right, the two people both have blond hair and halos. One, either a man or a younger boy, seems to kneel in the pool, filling a pitcher with water. He turns to look toward the man standing behind him, who leans over and touches his shoulders. Trees with triangular canopies of dark green leaves have thin, spindly trunks placed regularly across the background with a few on the grassy ground closer to us.
Fra Filippo Lippi, Saint Benedict Orders Saint Maurus to the Rescue of Saint Placidus, c. 1445/1450, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.10

Saint Benedict Orders Saint Maurus to the Rescue of Saint Placidus

Fra Filippo Lippi · c. 1445/1450 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.10

A woman kneels in front of a baby under a stone structure to the right as a man sits and dozes in front of a landscape to the left in this wide, horizontal painting. All three people have pale, peachy skin with rosy cheeks and gold, flat, disk-like halos. To our right, the woman’s head and shoulders are covered with a white cloth as she crosses her hands across her chest. She wears a rose-pink dress under a voluminous, sky-blue robe lined with spruce green. The robe puddles on the floor behind her feet, and one section has been pulled forward to be used as a blanket for the baby. The child has blond hair and round cheeks, and is swaddled in white under the robe. He is propped up against stacked rolls of hay. A room-like space with pale pink stone walls stretches back beyond the woman. The wall to the left is pierced with an arched opening. A trough lines that wall on the woman’s side of the opening, and another is perpendicular to it, just beyond the baby. An ox pokes its head through the opening, and an ass looks across the second trough. To our left, the man sits with at least one knee pulled up. He has long blond hair, a white beard, and wears a sapphire-blue tunic and red robe. He leans one elbow on his bent knee and rests his head in that hand, his eyes closed. A staff with a sack tied to the end rests against his other shoulder. He sits on a flat, green area at the foot of sheer-cut, green, rocky hills. More hills, trees, and a path lead back into the distance to towns along the horizon. The upper and lower edges of the panel are painted with pale pink similar to the building, making it seem that we look through a partial frame at the scene.
Fra Filippo Lippi, Italian 15th Century, The Nativity, probably c. 1445, oil and tempera (?) on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.279

The Nativity

Fra Filippo Lippi, Italian 15th Century · probably c. 1445 · oil and tempera (?) on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.279

Dozens of people line up around a shed-like structure and around stone ruins to kneel before a woman and baby at the lower center of this circular painting. All the people have pale skin. The crowd gathers along a pathway that winds around a rocky mountain at the top middle of the composition. Most of the people are on foot but a few ride horses or camels. The line of people curves around and through an arched opening in a stone ruin to our left. Sitting at the center of the painting, behind the woman and baby, Mary and Jesus, the structure is open at the front and has a triangular pitched roof. Some of the people, including the three closest to Mary and Jesus, wear elegant, gold-trimmed clothing. Others wear simple tunics, and several people standing along the ruins in the middle distance wear only white loincloths. Ages of the people range from young and cleanshaven to older and bearded. Their costumes are mostly pale yellow, coral orange, crimson red, shell pink, or sky blue. Some people raise their heads and hands while others hold hands to their chests and close their eyes. Mary wears a pale blue robe over a blush-pink dress. Jesus is nude and an older man standing nearby wears an apricot-colored robe over a blue tunic. The older man, Mary, and Jesus have gold halos. A peacock and two other birds stand on the roof of the manger, which shelters an ox, ass, and horses.
Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1440/1460, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.2

The Adoration of the Magi

Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi · c. 1440/1460 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.2

A woman supports a pudgy baby who sits on a stone ledge in this vertical painting. They both have pale skin, rosy cheeks, blond hair, and subtle halos made of gold dots. The woman’s body faces us, and her head tips to our left. She looks at us with brown eyes under delicate brows, and she has a straight nose, full cheeks, and her small, bow-shaped lips are slightly parted. A translucent white veil wraps around her hair and falls to her shoulders. Her rose-pink dress is pleated vertically down the front, and her lapis-blue cloak falls from her shoulders. Gold lettering lines the neckline of the dress and the full sleeves of the cloak. A gold star is painted on her right shoulder, to our left, and gold dots create shimmering highlights on her clothing. She braces the baby’s chest with one hand, and the other rests behind the forest-green pillow on which he sits. The child has small, light brown eyes, a delicate nose, and round cheeks. A white cloth wraps around his chest and falls across his lap. He holds onto the woman’s hand with one of his own, and his other hand grips the woman’s ring finger. The woman stands behind the ledge in front of a carved, round-topped niche. The niche is inset with laurel-green stone around a half shell that curves over her head. The upper corners and back of the niche below the shell are set with pink stone against the white molding.
Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child, c. 1440, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.290

Madonna and Child

Fra Filippo Lippi · c. 1440 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.290

Separated by a vertical, column-like partition, a woman to our right kneels opposite a winged angel to our left, who also kneels and holds the stem of a long white lily propped against one shoulder in this horizontal painting. The upper corners are curved, suggesting the panel was set in an arched frame. Both people have pale, peachy skin with a yellow cast, delicate facial features, and starburst-like gold halos hovering over blond, curly hair. To our left, the angel faces our right in profile, one hand held to the chest as the other, resting on the raised knee, holds the stem of the lily. The angel wears a voluminous, lavender-purple robe tied in pleats at the waist with a gold cord. The neckline is marigold orange, and the cuffs and hem are edged with gold. The wings emerging from the shoulder blades are made of rounded, gold and blue feathers like the eyes of peacock feathers. A white dove hovers above the angel’s head and gold rays extend toward the woman, to our right. The woman kneels, facing our left in profile, her head bowed. A gauzy white head covering is tied around her hair. She holds the sides of her deep blue robe at her chest, over a coral-red dress. The hem of the blue robe is edged with gold lettering resembling writing. She clutches a small, thick book with a teal-blue cover and gold edges in one hand at her chest. The angel and woman are separated by a slate-gray, column or partition, and the room behind each person is slightly different. The angel is set in a room with stone-gray walls with a doorway on the back wall, and rectangular openings on the wall to our left. The salmon-pink floor spans both rooms, but is banded with gray along the bottom edge of the painting to our right. The woman is in a room with a bench and shelves holding a thick book and a pink flower in a glass vase. A darkened doorway opens, presumably into another room, opposite us. A curtain hangs down along the partition in front of the angel, perhaps indicating that a window separates them. The rays emanating from the dove also disappear behind the partition to reemerge on the other side, suggesting a window.
Fra Filippo Lippi, The Annunciation, c. 1435/1440, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1943.4.35

The Annunciation

Fra Filippo Lippi · c. 1435/1440 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1943.4.35

Bibliography

1901

  • Strutt, Edward. Fra Filippo Lippi. London, 1901.

1909

  • Mendelsohn, Henriette. Fra Filippo Lippi. Berlin, 1909.

1932

  • Mengin, Urbain. Les deux Lippi. Paris, 1932.

1942

  • Oertel, Robert. Fra Filippo Lippi. Vienna, 1942.

1949

  • Pittaluga, Mary. Fra Filippo Lippi. Florence, 1949.

1975

  • Marchini, Giuseppe. Filippo Lippi. Milan, 1975.

1993

  • Ruda, Jeffrey. Fra Filippo Lippi. Life and Work with a Complete Catalogue. London, 1993.

1999

  • Holmes, Megan. Fra Filippo Lippi, The Carmelite Painter. New Haven and London, 1999.

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: 394.