Madonna of Humility, The Blessing Christ, Two Angels, and a Donor [obverse]

c. 1380/1390

Andrea di Bartolo

Painter, Sienese, active from 1389 - died 1428

A woman sitting on the floor and cradling a nursing baby in her lap is flanked by two winged angels and a kneeling woman, beneath a bearded man supported on a third angel in this vertical painting. The seated woman, Mary, and the infant, Jesus, have pale, peachy skin, blond hair, and hazel eyes. Mary sits facing us on a long cushion on the floor with her body angled to our right, taking up about half the height of the composition. Her round face is tilted to our right as she gazes up under faint brows. Her marine-blue mantle is trimmed with gold and has a star on her right shoulder, to our left. The mantle covers most of her head and wraps around her tan and bronze-brown robe. The baby swaddled in a rose-pink cloth and reaches for her exposed left breast, which emerges from a place near her shoulder. Jesus lies across a white cloth that also drapes over her left arm. His head is turned slightly away from her breast as he looks up and to our left while his left arm reaches toward the neck of her dress. He has adult-like facial features but a pudgy body, and his ankles are crossed with the toes of his bottom foot flexed. Two winged angels floating to each side are smaller in scale, and are painted entirely in pumpkin orange. They face in toward Mary and Jesus, and wear long, flowing garments. The angel to our left crosses arms over the chest, and the angel to our right holds hands up in prayer. A third orange angel floats above them, seen head-on, gazing down. Above it is the torso of a young man with brown hair and beard, wearing a rose-pink cloak over a peacock-blue robe. He faces us with one hand held up, index and middle finger extended. He holds a closed book the same color blue as his robe in his other hand. Mary, Jesus, the bearded man, and the angels all have halos incised into the gold background, which comes to a point above the bearded man. In the bottom quarter of the painting, the burnt-orange floor is covered with a brocade-like pattern in gold. Set against it in the lower right corner, a woman, much smaller in scale than Mary and Jesus, kneels with her raised hands pressed together as she gazes up at them in profile. She is completely covered by a bone-white, long-sleeved garment, wimple, and long mantle, leaving only her face visible. The inner edges of the panel, including along the pointed top, are punched with floral and geometric patterns. The upper corners of the wooden panel to either side of the point are filled in with gold.

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The Virgin is dressed in gold brocade and is attended by angels in gestures of prayer and respect. From the flight of seraphim above, Christ blesses her and the child at her breast. Mary is honored here as the Queen of Heaven, yet she sits not on a throne but on a simple cushion on the ground. This type of representation, known as the Madonna of Humility, became quite popular after it was introduced in the 1340s, apparently by Sienese painter Simone Martini. Its symbolism may stem from the linguistic similarity between the Latin humilitas (humility) and humus (ground). Humility was held by church fathers as one of the greatest Christian virtues.

Andrea di Bartolo and his shop specialized in small devotional pictures like this one, which was owned and used for personal meditations by the woman (donor) whose tiny figure we see kneeling in prayer at the bottom of the panel. She follows the pensive gaze of Mary’s almond-shaped eyes—like the decorative patterning of textiles and gold surfaces, these eyes are typical of the Gothic style favored in Siena—and shares the Virgin’s vision of her son’s future. And, in fact, the reverse of the panel is painted with her son’s fate: a stark scene of the Crucifixion. This double-sided panel makes the National Gallery of Art’s painting unique among Andrea’s 12 or so surviving versions of the Madonna of Humility, as does the inclusion of the donor. Additionally, an attached frame, now lost, contained seven circular cavities, or roundels, that held the owner’s collection of relics (the remains of a holy site or holy person, of which those related to Christ and the Virgin Mary were most valued).

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 28.4 × 17 cm (11 3/16 × 6 11/16 in.)
    overall: 30 × 18.6 × 0.8 cm (11 13/16 × 7 5/16 × 5/16 in.)
    framed: 52.1 x 34.3 x 7.6 cm (20 1/2 x 13 1/2 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.20.a

Associated Artworks

A thin, haggard, olive-skinned, nearly nude man is nailed to a wooden cross in this vertical painting. His body is stretched and elongated between wide-spread hands. Blood trickles from where each hand has been nailed to the cross and from a gash over his right ribs, on our left. The blood from the nail in his overlapping feet drips down the shallow platform on which they rest, down the foot of the cross, and onto the ground. His head droops down to our left, eyes closed and shaded under deeply furrowed brows. Blood also seeps from the ring of thorns around his long, coppery-red hair. He has a long, straight nose, a short beard, and his lips are slightly parted. The man wears a sheer white cloth loosely draped low on his hips. The background is streaked with tawny brown, burnt orange, and gold.

Christ on the Cross [reverse]

Andrea di Bartolo

1380

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Madonna of Humility, The Blessing Christ, Two Angels, and a Donor [obverse], c. 1380/1390

This horizontal painting is made up of three parts: in the center square panel, a woman reclines under a wooden shelter set into a rocky cave, which is surrounded by angels, and narrower wings to either side are each occupied by a standing man. All the people have pale skin, which is tinged with faint green. The three panels are joined with a gold frame, and the gold background behind the central scene and the men in the side panels are covered with a noticeable network of cracks. In the central panel, a cobalt-blue robe nearly envelopes the reclining woman’s body; this is Mary. It covers her head and falls open where she crosses her wrists over her chest to show a pink garment underneath. A flat gold halo encircles her head ,and her body is surrounded by a field of crimson red, almost like an aura. She rests under a wooden structure with a pitched roof, which is surrounded by craggy, barren rock. A swaddled infant lies in a rectangular, tray-like manger. The infant’s head is also surrounded by a gold halo. Fine gold rays emanate down into the structure from a star just above the peak of the roof. A bull and a donkey look down at the baby from the far side of the manger. The interior of the structure behind them is black. In a smaller scale, two women wash a haloed infant in a tub in front of the rocky cave near the lower left corner of this panel. A man with a white beard and hair sits to our left of Mary, holding a pink cloak at his throat and looking toward the infant. Above and around the rocks, seven winged and haloed angels cluster on each side. One angel to the right presents a scroll with black writing to two men accompanied by a dog and several sheep in the lower right. The man in the panel to the left, Isaiah, has a gray beard and long, wavy hair, and he wears a lilac-purple cloak draped over a coral-orange robe. In his right hand, on our left, he holds an unfurled scroll with large black lettering. His other hand is raised with one finger pointing upward. He looks to our left, away from the central scene. On the right, Ezekiel, echoes Isaiah's pose. Ezekiel holds an open scroll with his left hand, on our right, and his other hand is raised. He also wears a coral-colored robe, but his is overlaid with a blue cloak. His receding hair is short and brown, as is his beard. Like Isaiah, he takes up most of the height of the panel and gazes to our left, toward the central panel.

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Private collection, Italy, c. 1920.[1] (Alessandro Contini, Rome [from 1930, Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi]); sold October 1927 to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955], New York;[2] transferred 1929 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] In his expertise dated 8 August 1934, commissioned from him by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation (copy in the NGA curatorial files), F. Mason Perkins states that he had seen the painting for the first time in an Italian private collection fifteen years earlier.
[2] The bill of sale for sculpture, maiolica, furniture, antique velvet, and several paintings, including a "Madonna and Child by Lippo Memmi...given to Donato Martini by some experts," is dated 5 October 1927 (copy in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1343).

Associated Names

Bibliography

1936

  • Meiss, Millard. "The Madonna of Humility." The Art Bulletin 18 (1936): 437, n. 8.

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 133-134, no. 131, as by Lippo Memmi (?).

  • Richter, George Martin. "The New National Gallery in Washington." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (June 1941): 177.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 242, repro. 153, as by Lippo Memmi (?).

1943

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. "A Madonna by Andrea Vanni." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 83, no. 484 (1943): 177.

1946

  • Meiss, Millard. "Italian Primitives at Konopištĕ." The Art Bulletin 28 (1946): 6, fig. 4.

  • Seymour, Charles, and Hanns Swarzenski. "A Madonna of Humility and Quercia’s Early Style." Gazette des Beaux-Arts Ser. 6, vol. 30 (1946): 139, fig. 9.

1951

  • Meiss, Millard. Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death. Princeton, 1951: 22-23, n. 34, 134, fig. 131.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 34, repro., as by Lippo Memmi (?).

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 7.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 66-67, fig. 173.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 1, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:8.

1969

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. Marias Demut und Verherrlichung in der sienesischen Malerei: 1300-1450. The Hague, 1969: 18, 120, 187, pl. 10a, fig. 64.

1971

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. "Andrea di Bartolo’s Assumption of the Virgin." Arts in Virginia 2 (1971): 4 (repro.), 5.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 6, 228, 346, 645.

1974

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. "Andrea di Bartolo’s Madonna of Humility." M: A Quarterly Review of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 6, no. 3 (1974): 21, 24 (repro.), 25

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 10, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:3-4; 2:pl. 1.

1982

  • Il gotico a Siena: miniature, pitture, oreficerie, oggetti d’arte. Exh. cat. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Florence, 1982: 292.

1983

  • L’Art gothique siennois: enluminure, peinture, orfèvrerie, sculpture. Exh. cat. Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon. Florence, 1983: 274.

  • Kasten, Eberhard. "Andrea di Bartolo." In Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Edited by Günter Meissner. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1983-1990: 2(1986):976.

1984

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. Sienese Altarpieces 1215-1460. Form, Content, Function. 2 vols. Groningen, 1984-1990: 2(1990):repro. 76.

  • Gilbert, Creighton E. "Tuscan Observants and Painters in Venice, ca. 1400." in Interpretazioni Veneziane: studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro. Edited by David Rosand. Venice, 1984: 111 (repro.), 114-116.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 18, repro.

1986

  • Maderna, Valentina, ed. Il polittico di Andrea di Bartolo a Brera Restaurato. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Florence, 1986: 10-11, 17.

1987

  • Freuler, Gaudenz. "Andrea di Bartolo, Fra Tommaso d’Antonio Cafarini, and Sienese Dominicans in Venice." The Art Bulletin 69 (1987): 577.

1989

  • Os, Hendrik W. van, J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer, C. E. de Jong-Janssen, and Charlotte Wiefhoff, eds. The Early Sienese Paintings in Holland. Translated by Michael Hoyle. Florence, 1989: 29, 32.

1992

  • Kasten, Eberhard. "Andrea di Bartolo." In Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Edited by Günter Meissner. 87+ vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1992+: 3(1992):514.

1994

  • Os, Hendrik W. van, Eugène Honée, Hans M. J. Nieuwdorp, and Bernhard Ridderbos. The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe, 1300-1500. Translated by Michael Hoyle. London, 1994: 74, repro.

1998

  • Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 44, 48, 224, 230, 351, 479.

1999

  • Holmes, Megan. Fra Filippo Lippi, The Carmelite Painter. New Haven and London, 1999: repro. 209.

  • Mannini, Maria Pia, ed. Da Bernardo Daddi a Giorgio Vasari. Exh. cat. Galleria Moretti, 26 September 1999. Florence, 1999: 56.

2003

  • Hyman, Timothy. Sienese Painting: The Art of a City-Republic (1278-1477). London, 2003: 124, fig. 97.

2005

  • Schmidt, Victor M. Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250-1400. Florence, 2005: 222-223, 265 n. 82.

2009

  • Bellosi, Luciano, et al., eds. La collezione Salini: dipinti, sculture e oreficerie dei secoli XII, XIII, XIV e XV. 4 vols. Florence, 2009, 2015: 1(2009):250, 252, repro. 253.

2014

  • Schmidt, Victor M. “La Vierge d’humilité de Niccolò di Buonaccorso.” Revue du Louvre no. 4 (2014): 51, fig. 9.

2015

  • Bowron, Edgar Peters. “Samuel H. Kress and His Collection of Italian Renaissance Paintings.” In A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America ed. Inge Reist. (The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America, 2) University Park, Pennsylvania, 2015: 110, color fig. 47.

2016

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 7-13, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20173266

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