Madonna of the Goldfinch

c. 1767/1770

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Artist, Venetian, 1696 - 1770

Shown from the chest up, a young woman faces us holding a nude baby in her arms in this vertical painting. They both have pale, peachy skin with pink cheeks. The woman has an oval face with a thin nose, and her coral-pink, bow mouth is closed. She looks down and to our left with dark eyes under arched brows. Her hair is covered by a bone-white veil, and an azure-blue mantle is draped over her rose-pink robe, which is a darker pink at the shoulders. She cradles the plump child in her crossed arms. The baby has short, wavy, copper-red hair framing a round, flushed face with a button nose, peach lips, and hazel eyes that look at us. He holds a bird in his left hand, on our right. The bird has an off-white body with charcoal-gray wings and neck, and a strawberry-red face. The baby grasps one end of the woman’s veil with his other hand. The background is concrete gray to our left, and the right half is covered by a ginger-brown curtain.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 63.1 x 50.3 cm (24 13/16 x 19 13/16 in.)
    framed: 86.4 x 73 x 8.9 cm (34 x 28 3/4 x 3 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.4.40

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Principe Giovanni-Battista del Drago [1860-1956], Rome, 1904.[1] Unknown [probably a dealer], Hamburg, 1905; Arthur Maier [d. 1935], Karlsbad.[2] (Steinmayer and Bourgeois, Paris); sold 16 October 1904 to (F. Kleinberger Galleries, Paris). [3] (Schaeffer Galleries, New York); purchased 1940 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] According to Adolfo Venturi, "Tre quadri della raccolta dei principi del Drago in Roma", L'Arte 7 (1904): 64. Martha Hepworth of the Getty Provenance Index (letter of 15 March 1993, NGA curatorial files) noted that some of del Drago's paintings came from Spain: the Mantegna Sacra Conversazione, now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, was given by Maria Cristina, Queen Regent of Spain, to her daughter on her marriage to Filippo, Principe del Drago in 1856.
[2] According to Eduard Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo. Ihr Leben und Ihre Werke, Hamburg, 1910: 216, the painting was briefly in Hamburg in 1905 before passing to Maier.
[3] Kleinberger Gallery stock card no. 6729, Department of European Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sack 1910: 216, placed the painting with Kleinberger, but does not mention that it was owned by Steinmayer and Bourgeois, which is included in Pompeo Molmenti, G. B. Tiepolo, La sua vita e le sue opere, Milan, 1909: 310-311, repro. 315; Pompeo Molmenti, G. B. Tiepolo, Paris, 1911: 253, pl. 241.
[4] According to notations in the Kress records, NGA curatorial files. There is a card in the file of "Paintings Sold," Box 6, Schaeffer Gallery Records, Getty Research Institute, which confirms the sale to Kress in 1940 and gives stock no. as 497, but there is no separate stock card for this number. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1385.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1996

  • Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 40-41, color repro.

2010

  • La Serenissima : Eighteenth-Ventury Venetian Art from North American Collections, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 2010-2011, no. 23, repro.

2014

  • Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, 2014-2015, no. 68, repro.

Bibliography

1904

  • Venturi, Adolfo. "Tre quadri della raccolta dei principi del Drago in Roma." L'Arte 7 (1904): 64.

1909

  • Molmenti, Pompeo. G. B. Tiepolo. La sua vita e le sue opere. Milan, 1909: 310-311, repro. 315, as by Imitator of Giambattista Tiepolo.

1910

  • Sack, Eduard. Giambattista und Domenico Tieopolo. Ihr Leben und Ihre Werke. Hamburg, 1910: 216, no. 477.

1911

  • Molmenti, Pompeo. G. B. Tiepolo. Paris, 1911: 253, pl. 241, as by Imitator of Giambattista Tiepolo.

1931

  • Kletzl, Otto. "Bilder der Sammlung Arthur Maier-Karlsbad." Belvedere 11 (1931):152, repro.

1936

  • "Special Loan Exhibition. Venetian Painting of the Eighteenth Century." Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St Louis 21 (1936): 32-33, under no. 41.

1938

  • Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by the Two Tiepolos, Giambattista and Giandomenico. Exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago, 1938: 23.

1944

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 59, repro.

1946

  • Friedmann, Herbert. The Symbolic Goldfinch. Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art. Washington, 1946: 63, 81, 84, 108-109, 158 pl. 110.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 249, repro.

1960

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Later Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Six in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 36, color repro.

1962

  • Morassi, Antonio. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo. London, 1962: 67, as by Giandomenico Tiepolo.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 216, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 127.

1968

  • Pallucchini, Anna. L'opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 1968: 134, as Giandomenico Tiepolo.

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 114, repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 198, as by Giandomenico Tiepolo.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 152-153, fig. 287, as Studio of Giambattista Tiepolo.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 338, repro.

1979

  • Fehl, Philipp. "Farewell to Jokes: The Last Capricci of Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo and the Tradition of Irony in Venetian Painting." Critical Inquiry (1979): 773, fig. 211, as by Giandomenico Tiepolo (reprinted in Decorum and Wit..., Vienna, 1979).

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:457-458; 2:pl. 327, 327A, as Studio of Giambattista Tiepolo.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 389, repro.

1988

  • Wheeler, Marion, ed. His Face--Images of Christ in Art, New York, 1988: 126, no. 17, color repro.

1990

  • Mena Marqués, Manuela B. Museo del Prado. Catálogo de dibujos, 7: Dibujos italianos del siglo XVIII e del siglo XIX. Madrid, 1990: 142, under F.A. 707, as by Giandomenico Tiepolo.

1992

  • Pressly, William L. "Goya's 'Don Manuel Osirio de Zúñiga.' A Christological Allegory." Apollo 136 (1992): 16, fig. 6.

1993

  • Gemin, Massimo, and Filippo Pedrocco. Giambattista Tiepolo. Venice, 1993: 466, under no. 484, 514, no. 70, as mostly by Giandomenico Tiepolo.

1994

  • Thiem, Christel. "Lorenzo Tiepolo as Draughtsman." Master Drawings 32, no. 4 (1994): 338-340, fig. 40.

1996

  • De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 285-289, color repro. 287.

Wikidata ID

Q20178371

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