Cupids Disarming Sleeping Nymphs

c. 1690/1705

Giuseppe Maria Crespi

Artist, Bolognese, 1665 - 1747

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on copper

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 52.4 x 75.5 cm (20 5/8 x 29 3/4 in.)
    framed: 71.1 x 93.7 x 7.6 cm (28 x 36 7/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.62


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome), by 1928;[1] purchased 1930 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] The painting is identified as being in the collection of Count Contini in Rome by Victor Lasareff, "Studies on Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Part One," Art in America XVII, no. 1 (December 1928): 17, fig. 3.
[2] The bill of sale between Contini Bonacossi and the Kress Foundation that includes this painting is dated 30 September 1930. The painting is described as "Hunting Scene by G.B. Crespi," and notes indicate it was credited for return to Contini Bonacossi on 13 September 1931, but was bought back in 1932, when it is listed again on a bill of 4 March. Neither bill indicates any prior provenance information; see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/634. (Copies of the bills of sale are in NGA curatorial files.)

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1929

  • Il seicento italiano, Palazzo delle Biennale, Venice, 1929, no. 3, repro.

1935

  • Mostra del settecento bolognese, Palazzo Comunale, Bologna, 1935, no. 39, repro.

1936

  • The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1936, no. 152, pl. 39.

  • Venetian Painting of the XVIIIth Century, M. Knoedler and Company, New York, 1936, no. 7.

1938

  • Tiepolo and His Contemporaries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1938, no. 4, repro., as Diana and Her Nymphs Resting.

1939

  • Masterworks of Five Centuries, Golden Gate International Exhibition, San Francisco, 1939, no. 28, repro.

  • Dutch and Italian Masterpieces from the Samul H. Kress Collection, Dayton Art Institute, 1939-1940, no cat.

Bibliography

1929

  • Lasareff, Victor. "Studies on Giuseppe Maria Crespi." Art in America 17 (1929): 17, fig. 3.

1932

  • Arslan, Wart. "Appunti su Magnasco, Sebastiano e Marco Ricci." Bollettino d'Arte 26 (1932): 210.

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 48, no. 173.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 242, repro. 91.

1944

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 58, repro., as Cupids with Sleeping Nymphs.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 138, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 234, repro.

1965

  • Matteucci, Anna. Giuseppe Maria Crespi. (I maestri del colore 92.) Milan, 1965: no. 5, color pl. 5.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 34..

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 27, repro.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 102-103, fig. 190.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 86, repro.

1976

  • Liebmann, Michael. Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Dresden, 1976: 20-21, fig. 5 (revised translation of Russian edition, 1965).

  • Merriman, Mira Pajes. "Giuseppe Maria Crespi's 'Jupiter among the Corybantes." The Burlington Magazine 118 (1976): 468, no. 12.

1977

  • Roli, Renato. Pittura bolognese 1650-1800. Dal Cignani ai Gandolfi. Bologna, 1977: 106, 251, fig. 159b.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:144-146; 2:pl. 102.

1980

  • Merriman, Mira Pajes. Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Milan, 1980: 80; 82-86; 99-100; 282, no. 172; fig. 172.

1983

  • Puglisi, Catherine Rose. "A Study of the Bolognese-Roman Painter Francesco Albani." Ph.D. dissertation, Institute of Fine Arts, New York, 1983: 125, fig. 44.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 106, repro.

1986

  • Spike, John. Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy. Exh. cat. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1986: 18, 123, fig. 7.1.

1990

  • Giordano Viroli in Giuseppe Maria Crespi 1665-1747. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Bologna and Stuttgart, 1990: 42, 65, 192.

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: 67-71, repro. 69.

Wikidata ID

Q20177682


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