Saint Anthony Leaving His Monastery

c. 1430/1435

Master of the Osservanza

Painter, Sienese, active late 1420s - early 1440s

Sano di Pietro

Painter, Sienese, 1405 - 1481

Three pale-skinned men wearing long, dark robes stand in and near a dense cluster of vivid, mint-green buildings with arched openings and clay-red colored roofs that nearly fill this vertical painting. Near the lower center of the composition, two bearded men stand in an open doorway looking out at the younger, cleanshaven man who stands barefoot to our right, facing them. At the door, the man in front has a long, white beard, and he holds a red book, or manuscript, in his left hand while holding up his right hand with his first two fingers raised. The man behind him has a red beard and hair. The younger man to our right bows his head, encircled with a gold halo, toward the pair in the doorway. The younger man holds one hand over his heart, and in the other holds a long, gnarled walking stick. The skin of all three men has a greenish cast. The green buildings are tall and narrow. Beyond the buildings, near the top of the panel, a row of tall, dark green trees are silhouetted against the shiny gold sky. The gold background is punched with a decorative band of small circles and arches along the top edge of the panel.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 46 x 34 cm (18 1/8 x 13 3/8 in.)
    overall size: 47.2 x 35 cm (18 9/16 x 13 3/4 in.)
    framed: 61.6 x 125.4 x 7.6 cm (24 1/4 x 49 3/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.21

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Probably Aloisi-Vicoli-Caccialupi family, San Severino Marche; by inheritance to Count Augusto Caccialupi Olivieri [1834-1897], Macerata, by 1870;[1] purchased by Robert Jenkins Nevin [1839-1906], Rome.[2] Dan Fellows Platt [1873-1938], Englewood, New Jersey, in 1906;[3] sold November 1943 by the trustees of the Platt estate to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] See Filippo Raffaelli, Catalogo di quadric divarie scuole pittoriche raccolti dal Sig. Conte Augusto Caccialupi in Macerata, Macerata, 1870: 6, nos. V, VI. Count Augusto Caccialupi's family inherited, apart from the Caccialupi estate, also those of the Aloisi and Vicoli families of San Severino. The Caccialupis were also from this city; Count Augusto, however, lived in Macerata; see Vittorio Spreti, Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, Milan, 1929: 2:226-229, and Aldo Adversi, Dante Cecchi, and Libero Paci, Storia di Macerata, 5 vols., Macerata, 1971-1977: 2(1972):59.
[2] In the preface to the Catalogo della vendita della collezione del fu reverendo Dottor Roberto I. Nevin..., sale cat. Galleria Sangiorgi, Rome, 22-27 April 1907: 8, Frederick Mason Perkins mentions that a group of paintings was acquired by Nevin from the Caccialupi collection. According to Giusepe Vitalini Sacconi (Pittura marchigiana. La scuola camerinese, Trieste, 1968: 238 n. 285), Nevin bought all of what at that remained of the collection, a considerable part of which was already sold before 1870. The provenance of NGA 1952.5.20 and NGA 1952.5.21 from the Nevin collection is first stated by Lionello Venturi, Pitture italiane in America, Milan, 1931: no. CXXV. They must have been sold before Nevin died, as they are not in the catalogue of his 1907 estate sale.
[3] There seen already by F. Mason Perkins "Quattro tavole inedite del Sassetta," Rassegna d'Arte Senese 7 (1907): 45-46. See Dan Fellows Platt Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University, NJ; box 2, folder 23, call number C0860.
[4] The bill of sale for six paintings from Ethel Bliss Platt, as trustee of the estate of Dan Fellows Platt, to the Kress Foundation is dated 30 November 1943. A letter of the same date from the Foundation to Mrs. Platt confirms that the purchase is "made with the understanding that [the paintings] are to be deeded to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C." (Copies of both documents are in NGA curatorial files.) See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1796.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1917

  • Loan Exhibition of Italian Primitives, F. Kleinberger Galleries, New York, 1917, no. 52, repro.

1939

  • Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 347a, repro., as St. Anthony leaves the Monastery for Alexandria by Sassetta.

1940

  • Golden Gate International Exposition, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1940, no. 120, repro., as St. Anthony Leaves the Monastery for Alexandria by Sassetta.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 818, as by Sassetta.

1988

  • Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988-1989, no. 10c, repro., as Saint Anthony Blessed by an Old Hermit by the Master of the Osservanza.

2010

  • Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le Arti a Siena nel Primo Rinascimento, Complesso Museale Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, 2010, no. C.34c, repro.

Bibliography

1907

  • Perkins, F. Mason. "Quattro tavole inedite del Sassetta," Rassegna d'Arte Senese 7 (1907): 45-46.

1931

  • Waterhouse, Ellis K. "Sassetta and the Legend of St. Anthony Abbot." The Burlington Magazine 59 (September 1931): 108-113, plate I-C.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 1:138, repro.

1939

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. Sassetta. London, 1939: 69-77, 82-86, 91-93, n. 35-50, repro. pl. xiii.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 39, repro., as by Sassetta.

1946

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 27, repro., as by Sassetta

1956

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. "Rethinking Sassetta." _The Burlington Magazine_98 (October 1956): 365, 366, 368, fig. 29.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 40, repro., as by Sassetta.

  • 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.): 18, color repro., as by Sassetta.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 120, as by Sassetta and Assistant.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 141, fig. 379.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 107, repro., as by Sassetta and Assistant.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:254.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 318, repro., as by Sassetta and Assistant.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:319-323; 2:pl. 232, as Master of the Osservanza Triptych.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 80, no. 28, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 368, repro.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 402.

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: 481-495, color repro., as by Master of the Osservanza (Sano di Pietro).

2005

  • Costanzi, Costanza, ed. Le Marche disperse: repertorio di opere d’arte dalle Marche al mondo. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2005: 196, cat. 265b.

2012

  • Bellosi, Luciano. "Considerazioni introduttive al problema dell'identificazione tra il "Maestro dell'Osservanza" e Sano di Pietro." In Gabriele Fattorini et. al., eds. Sano di Pietro: Qualità, devozione e pratica nella pittura senese del Quattrocento. Giornate di studio nel sesto centenario della nascita. Siena 5 dicembre 2005 – Asciano 6 dicembre 2005. Milan, 2012: 44.

  • De Marchi, Andrea. "Sano di Pietro prima della Pala dei Gesuati e il "Maestro dell'Osservanza": aporie di una doppia identità." In Gabriele Fattorini et. al., eds. Sano di Pietro: Qualità, devozione e pratica nella pittura senese del Quattrocento. Giornate di studio nel sesto centenario della nascita. Siena 5 dicembre 2005 – Asciano 6 dicembre 2005. Milan, 2012: 62-65, figs. 34, 37-38.

Wikidata ID

Q20173519

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