Putti with a Wine Press

c. 1500

Mariotto Albertinelli

Painter, Florentine, 1474 - 1515

Twelve naked, pudgy, little boys gather in, over, and around a wide, open, wooden barrel set in front of a sprawling, tree-like grape vine in this round painting. The boys all have light skin and short, blond hair. The barrel is set on flat, wooden beams. The vine behind it has a twisting brown trunk and the dark green canopy is dotted with purple grapes, and it spreads to fill the rounded top of the composition. The clear sky behind the tree is turquoise blue. One boy wearing a crown of grapes and leaves perches in the tree and looks down at the others. He holds a glass with red liquid in one hand and a thin staff in the other. Of the three boys in the barrel, one drinks from a shallow bowl and another holds up a basket of grapes. The third, in the center, holds a bunch of grapes down over the front edge of the barrel. On the ground around the barrel, one boy to our left holds an elongated, gold cornucopia topped with fruit as he looks toward another child straddling the shoulders of a third. At the front center, a boy kneels and drinks from a cup near one who sleeps, stretched out on the ground, using a pitcher as a pillow. To our right, one boy looks up at the tree and the final two play together around another, smaller barrel. The circular painted panel is surrounded by a gold frame.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 27

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall (diameter): 33.3 × 32.8 × 0.3 cm (13 1/8 × 12 15/16 × 1/8 in.)
    framed (diameter): 52.23 × 9.84 cm (20 9/16 × 3 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.72

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Prof. Pietro Toesca; sold c. 1933 to (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence and Rome);[1] sold 1948 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] According to Kress records in NGA curatorial files.
[2] The Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi on 7 June 1948 for a group of twenty-eight paintings, including The Vintage - Invention of Wine by Raphael; the offer was accepted on 11 July 1948 (see copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1746).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1997

  • Pietro Perugino: Master of the Italian Renaissance, The Grand Rapids Art Museum, 1997-1998, no. 16, repro.

2013

  • Dionysus. Intoxication and Ecstasy, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2013-2014, no. 34, repro.

Bibliography

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 146, no. 57, repro., as Circle of Raphael.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 99, repro., as Circle of Raphael.

  • Camesasca, Ettore. Tutta la pittura del Perugino. Milan, 1959: 168, as Florentine circle of Raphael.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 108, as Circle of Raphael.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 95, repro., as Circle of Raphael.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 106, fig. 259, as Circle of Raphael

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:333, as by Perugino, Vintaging Putti.

1969

  • Camesasca, Ettore. L’opera completa del Perugino. Milan, 1969: 123, cat. 281, as Closer to Raphael than to Perugino.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 161, as Follower of Perugino.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 282, repro., as Circle of Raphael.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:397-398; 2:pl. 282, as Circle of Raphael.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 173, no. 195, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 327, repro.

1989

  • Todini, Filippo. La pittura umbra dal Duecento al primo Cinquecento. 2 vols. Milan, 1989: 1:279, as by an Umbrian Follower of Perugino.

1999

  • Southgate, M. Therese. “The Cover.” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 282, no. 20 (24 November 1999): 1895, repro.

2019

  • Padovani, Serena. “Fra Bartolomeo e Mariotto. Conferme e proposte.” In Alessio Assonitis, Luciano Cinelli and Marilena Tamassia, eds. Fra Bartolomeo 1517. Florence 2019: 82-85, figs. 8, 9b, 10b, 11a, as by Mariotto Albertinelli.

Wikidata ID

Q20174815

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