The Adoration of the Child

c. 1475/1480

Filippino Lippi

Painter, Florentine, 1457 - 1504

A winged angel, a woman, and a baby are gathered on a terrace that overlooks a softly lit landscape in this vertical painting. The people all have parchment-white skin tinged faintly with green, delicate gold halos, and they are close to us. The baby is round and plump, and faces us as he lies on his side on a carpet of pine-green grass dotted with small white and pink flowers. A band of caramel brown spans the lower edge of the painting. Propped up on one elbow, the baby turns his blond head to look at the woman kneeling beside him to our right. The woman, Mary, towers over the baby with her body angled slightly to our left. A midnight-blue cloak trimmed in gold is wrapped around her coral-red gown. The fingertips of her raised hands lightly touch as she bows her head and lowers her brown eyes to look at the child. A transparent white veil drapes over her blond hair. To our left, the angel also kneels and looks down at the baby with arms crossed over the chest. The angel has curly, copper-red hair and wears a carnation-pink robe over a transparent chemise. Semi-transparent, bronze-colored wings nearly disappear into the background. Just beyond the trio, a low balustrade with an opening near Mary encloses the space. A colonnade with arched openings extends into the distance to our left, behind the angel. A flat, olive-green wall rises the height of the painting behind Mary. Between them, the landscape is carpeted with moss and celery-green grass, and dotted with trees. A river winds toward slate-gray hills in the deep distance.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 7

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 81.5 x 56.3 cm (32 1/16 x 22 3/16 in.)
    support: 82.5 x 57.3 cm (32 1/2 x 22 9/16 in.)
    framed: 117.2 x 91.1 x 8.3 cm (46 1/8 x 35 7/8 x 3 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.18

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Grand Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen [1826-1914], by 1872;[1] sold April 1930 by his heirs to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[2] sold 15 December 1936 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[3] gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] The painting is listed by Jordan in Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting Italy, from the II to the XVI Century, German ed., trans. Max Jordan, 6 vols. in 8 parts, Leipzig, 1869-1876: 4, part 2(1872): 593, as being in the grand ducal collection at Meiningen, but it was probably a relatively recent acquisition. In fact, writing in 1909, Voss (in Georg Voss, Herzogtum Sachsen-Meiningen Bau-und Kunst-Denkmäler Thüringens no. 34, Jena, 1909, 163-164) states that the paintings were purchased for the most part by Grand Duke Georg II "some decades ago." It can be conjectured that the purchases began (or at least became more numerous) after 1866, when he became Herzog of Saxe-Meiningen. There is a red wax seal of the Saxe-Meiningen family on the reverse of the panel. Although the earlier provenance of the panel is unknown, the presence of a Parisian customs stamp on the back could indicate that at one time the painting belonged to a French collector or dealer. Duveen Brothers also sent the painting to Paris twice (see note 2).
[2] The Duveen Brothers prospectus, in NGA curatorial files, says the painting "was disposed of by the Fideikommisse (Trustees) [of the Saxe-Meiningen family] in 1929," and this was the year published in Miklós Boskovits, David Brown et al., Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2003: 379, as the date of the sale to the dealer. Documents in the Duveen Brothers Records, however, indicate representatives of the dealer first saw the painting in November 1929, and did not finalize the purchase until April 1930. See reel 115, box 260, folder 8, Duveen Brothers Records, accession no. 960015, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (copies in NGA curatorial files).
[3] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1869

  • Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. Geschichte der italienischen Malerei. 6 vols. Leipzig, 1869-1876: 4(1872): 593.

1900

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. 2nd ed. New York and London, 1900: 97, as by Amico di Sandro.

1901

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Study and Criticism of Italian Art. London, 1901: 57.

1909

  • Voss, Georg. Herzogtum Sachsen-Meiningen Bau-und Kunst-Denkmäler Thüringens, no. 34. Jena, 1909: 1:166-167, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd ed. London, 1909: 101, as by Amico di Sandro.

1923

  • Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 12(1931): 256.

1932

  • Venturi, Lionello. “Contributi a Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli, a Filippino Lippi, a Domenico Ghirlandaio, a Perugino.” L’Arte 3 (1932): 418, 421, fig. 4.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 2:pl. 260.

1935

  • Scharf, Alfred. Filippino Lippi. Vienna, 1935: 106, cat. 19, pl. 23.

1937

  • Cortissoz, Royal._ An Introduction to the Mellon Collection_. Boston, 1937: 12.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 110, repro., as The Madonna Adoring the Child with an Angel.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 105, no. 18, as Madonna Adoring the Child, with an Angel.

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

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 130, as Madonna Adoring the Child, with an Angel.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 22, repro.

1950

  • Scharf, Alfred. Filippino Lippi, 2nd ed. Vienna, 1950: 14-15, 52.

1957

  • Berti, Luciano, and Umberto Baldini. Filippino Lippi. Florence, 1957: 20, 72.

1963

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:111.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 75.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 66, repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 106, 645.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 194, repro.

  • Shoemaker, Innis H. “Filippino Lippi as a Draughtsman.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1975: 9.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:257; 2:pl. 174.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 228, repro.

1991

  • Berti, Luciano, and Umberto Baldini. Filippino Lippi, 2nd ed. Florence, 1991: 64-65, 166, repro.

1992

  • Barocchi, Paola, ed. Il Giardino di San Marco: Maestri e compagni del giovane Michelangelo. Exh. cat., Casa Buonarroti, Florence, 1992: 51.

1994

  • Kustodieva, Tatiana K. Italian Painting: Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries. Catalogue of Western European Painting / The Hermitage. Florence, 1994: 231.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2003: 379-382, color repro.

2004

  • Zambrano, Patrizia, and Jonathan Katz Nelson. Filippino Lippi. Milan, 2004: 67 n. 107, 236-238, 332, 337, fig. 233, cat. 24, as by Filippino Lippi and Vincenzo Frediani.

2011

  • Kustodieva, Tat'jana. Museo Statale Ermitage: La pittura italiana dal XIII al XVI secolo. Milan, 2011: 218.

2023

  • Daly, Christopher. “Painting in Lucca in the Late Fifteenth Century: A Problem in Artistic Geography.” 2 vols. Ph. D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2023: 2:324, cat. R5.15.

Wikidata ID

Q20174124

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