Madonna Adoring the Child

c. 1520

Marco Basaiti

Artist, Venetian, active 1496 - 1530

A woman stands over a sleeping infant in front of a deep landscape in this vertical painting. She has pale skin and light brown wavy hair. Her head tilts down to our left as her dark eyes gaze down at the infant lying on a ledge in front of her at about hip height, and her fingertips come together in front of her chest in prayer. A thin golden halo encircles the air above her head, and she wears thick robes of moss-green fabric with a dark blue lining over a crimson-red tunic. The collar of the tunic is edged with gold, and light reflects off the creases in the green robe where it bunches around her bent arms. The nude, bald infant lies on a blue cloth draped over a brown ledge in the bottom left corner of the panel. His body angles toward us as he lies back on two cushions. His eyes are closed, his lips slightly parted, and his left hand rests across his belly. A landscape behind the pair stretches out from rolling green hills to pale blue mountains in the distance. A thin white cloud spreads across the top of the blue sky. A building is nestled into the hills to the left, and tall spindly trees grow up the right edge of the panel. A man dressed in a brown tunic and hat leans on a staff near the tree, watching a cluster of white sheep. A narrow dirt path winds from the left side of the painting to the right and through the trees. Cracks on the surface of the painting are visible throughout and are especially noticeable in the sky. The artist signed the lower right corner of the painting on the edge of the ledge facing us: “M. BASAITI/P.”

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 12


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 20.6 x 16.5 cm (8 1/8 x 6 1/2 in.)
    framed: 32.1 x 27.9 x 4.1 cm (12 5/8 x 11 x 1 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.144


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Contessa di Breganze, Venice.[1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955], Florence and Rome); sold 1934 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York[2]; gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] According to Kress files in NGA curatorial records.
[2] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1320.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 16-17, no. 255.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 244, repro. 64.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 145, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 10.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 3, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 154, fig. 374.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 17, 645.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 18, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:29-30; 2: repro. pl. 18.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 219, no. 271, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 36, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: M. BASAITI / P., painted over the original signature MARCHVS / BAXAITI P.

Wikidata ID

Q20175626


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