Saint John the Baptist

1400/1899

Anonymous Artist

Sculptor

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    terracotta

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 50.5 x 38.5 x 18.5 cm (19 7/8 x 15 3/16 x 7 5/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.4.83

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Émile Gavet [1830-1904], Paris; sold 1892, possibly through a dealer, to William Kissam Vanderbilt [1849-1920], New York, and Marble House, Newport;[1] his wife, Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt [1853-1933, later Mrs. Oliver H.P. Belmont], Newport and Paris;[2] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris), by 1931;[3] sold 1941 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] See letter to the NGA from James T. Maher dated 17 July 1973, in NGA curatorial files. The bust does not appear in Émile Molinier's two catalogues of the Gavet collection, published in Paris in 1889 and 1894, or the catalogue for the sale of the Gavet collection at the Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 31 May - 9 June 1897.
[2] Vanderbilt and his wife were divorced in 1895, and Alva Vanderbilt married Belmont the following year.
[3] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series II.A. Files regarding works of art, reel 91, box 236, folder 3: Desiderio: "Bust of St. John the Baptist," terra cotta, 1926-1927, and folder 21: Donatello: "St. John the Baptist's head," Gavet collection, 1932-1946; copies in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1940

  • Sculpture and Carl Milles, Baltimore Museum of Art; Institute of Modern Art, Boston, 1940-1941, no. 7.

Bibliography

1944

  • Duveen Brothers, Inc. Duveen Sculpture in Public Collections of America: A Catalog Raisonné with illustrations of Italian Renaissance Sculptures by the Great Masters which have passed through the House of Duveen. New York, 1944: figs. 5-6, as by Donatello.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 182, repro., as by Donatello.

1976

  • Middeldorf, Ulrich. Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools XIV-XIX Century. London, 1976: 24.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 74, repro.

2007

  • Desiderio da Settignano: Sculptor of Renaissance Florence. Exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris; Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Milan, 2007: 135, fig. 91.

  • Pisani, Linda. "San Giovannino Battista nei busti del Rinascimento Florentino." In Jeanette Kohl and Rebecca Müller, eds. Kopf/Bild: Die Büste in Mittelalter und Frïher Neuzeit. (I Mandorli 6) Munich and Berlin, 2007: 231, no. 6, as Style of Antonio Rossellino.

2010

  • Bellandi, Alfredo. Gregorio di Lorenzo: Il Maestro delle Madonne di Marmo. Morbio Inferiore, 2010: 380, no. III.5.4, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q63810179

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