Madonna and Child

c. 1490

Carlo Crivelli

Artist, Venetian, c. 1430/1435 - 1495

Carlo Crivelli

Attributed to

A woman is shown from the waist up behind a ledge, on which a baby stands in front of a gold background in this vertical painting. Both people have pale skin, blond hair, light brown eyes, and small, pale pink lips. To the right, the woman’s body is angled slightly to our left, toward the child. Her head tips down so her forehead overlaps the baby’s head. The woman has close-set, almond-shaped eyes under thin brows. Her hair is pulled back and her head encircled with a string of pearls and a red bead or gem, which rests in the middle of her forehead. Her hair is also partially covered by a white veil and a blue cloak patterned with gold leaves, vines, and dots. The lining of the cloak is moss green, and her dusky pink dress is also edged and decorated with gold designs. She holds one long-fingered hand up to the child’s knee and braces his back side with her other hand. The child stands on chubby legs on tiny, sandaled feet. He leans close to the woman and looks off to our right with hooded, wide-set eyes. His lips are downturned, and he has chubby cheeks and a knobby chin. He wears a strand of red beads and a moss-green tunic over translucent white cloth. He stands on a red cloth draped over the center of the white ledge. A piece of a small, round red fruit with a long stem sits on the ledge to the right. The space behind the people’s shoulders is painted muted mauve pink with gray streaks. The woman and child both have halos punched into the gold background above. A branch with two pears is in the top left corner and another branch, perhaps holding an apple, is in the top right. The panel is framed by a raised lip, also painted gold.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 13

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 32.8 x 24.7 cm (12 15/16 x 9 3/4 in.)
    support (includes frame, carved from single piece of wood): 39 x 30.9 cm (15 3/8 x 12 1/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1939.1.264

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Eugen Miller von Aichholz [1835-1919], Vienna.[1] Camillo Castiglioni, Vienna, by 1924;[2] (his sale, Frederik Muller & Co., Amsterdam, 17-20 November 1925, no. 10); purchased by (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London and New York) for Mme E. ten Cate, Enschede, The Netherlands; purchased April 1930 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] sold 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] Collections Camillo Castiglioni de Vienne, 3 vols., Frederik Muller & Cie., Amsterdam, 1925: 1:3. According to a memorandum of 7 April 1949 (in NGA curatorial files), William Suida recalled that about 1910 von Aichholz told him he had bought this picture, perhaps around 1890, from a nobleman in a castle in the Romagna, Italy.
[2] Castiglioni lent the painting to the 1924 exhibition in Vienna.
[3] The negotiations for the painting were begun in February 1930, and are documented in a series of messages between Duveen Brothers' offices in New York, Paris, and London. The sale was concluded by 15 April 1930, when the Paris office cabled New York: "Concluded Crivelli...plus 10 percent for Venturi. Funds must be paid immediately...as are warned if payment delayed after holidays lady may change her mind." (Copies are in NGA curatorial files; Box 234, Folder 10, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also Franz Drey, Carlo Crivelli und seine Schule. Munich, 1927: 122-123, and Pietro Zampetti, Carlo Crivelli, Florence, 1986: 287.
[4] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of twenty-four paintings, including NGA 1939.1.264, is dated 9 March 1937; the provenance is given as "Ten Cate Collection" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1328.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1924

  • Meisterwerke Italienischer Renaissancekunst aus Privatbesitz, Secession, Vienna, 1924, no. 24, repro.

2015

  • Ornament & Illusion: Carlo Crivelli of Venice, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 2015-2016, no. 24, repro.

2016

  • Carlo Crivelli, A Renaissance Original, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2016, no catalogue.

Bibliography

1923

  • Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 18(1936):50-51, repro.

1926

  • Feuillet, Maurice. “Les grandes ventes étrangères: La Collection Camillo Castiglione de Vienne.” Le Figaro Artistique (11 February 1926): 283, 284, repro.

1927

  • Drey, Franz. Carlo Crivelli und seine Schule. Munich, 1927: 50-51, 122-123, pl. 7.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 2:pl.361.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 67, repro.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 49-50, no. 375.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 247, repro. 93.

1944

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 45, repro.

1952

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd edition. Oxford, 1952: pl. 12.

  • Zampetti, Pietro. Carlo Crivelli nelle marche. Urbino, 1952: 70.

1954

  • Godfrey, Frederick M. Early Italian Painters, 1415-1495. London, 1954: 20-21, fig. 35.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 12.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:71.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 129, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Early Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Three in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 36, color repro.

1961

  • Bovero, Anna. Tutta la pittura del Crivelli. Milan, 1961: 73-74, pl. 91.

  • Zampetti, Pietro. Carlo Crivelli. Milan, 1961: 96, fig. 142.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 302, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 35.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 28, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 36-37, fig. 84.

1974

  • Bovero, Anna. L’opera completa del Crivelli. Milan, 1974: 94, 95, fig. 117.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 88, repro.

1977

  • Levi d'Ancona, Mirella. The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting. Florence, 1977: 91, cited with erroneous title.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:149-150; 2:pl. 105.

1981

  • Hansen, Abby. “Coral in Children’s Portraits. A Charm against the Evil Eye.” Antiques 120, no. 4 (December 1981): 1424, repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 107, repro.

1986

  • Zampetti, Pietro. Carlo Crivelli. Florence, 1986: 287, pl. 77.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 236-239, color repro.

2004

  • Lightbown, Ronald. Carlo Crivelli. New Haven and London, 2004: 388, 390, fig. 177.

2005

  • Sharp, John. “Carlo Crivelli.” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 2005: 114-115, 210, fig. 52 (chapter 2), fig. 12 (chapter 3).

2021

  • Barkan, Leonard. The Hungry Eye: Eating, Drinking, and European Culture from Rome to the Renaissance. Princeton, 2021: 133-134, fig. 3.40.

Wikidata ID

Q3842394

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