Madonna and Child

c. 1505/1510

Vittore Carpaccio

Artist, Venetian, c. 1465 - 1525/1526

Shown from the shins up, a woman holds a seated child in her lap below two winged baby heads and in front of a deep landscape in this vertical painting. The woman, child, and faces above all have pale skin and blond hair. The woman sits at the center of the painting with her body facing us. Her head tips slightly to our right, and she looks down and to the left with heavy-lidded eyes. She has a heart-shaped face, and her pink lips are closed. A white cloth drapes over her head and back beyond her shoulders. Her ruby-red dress is tied with a dark green, nearly black cord around the waist, and a voluminous lapis-blue robe with a coppery gold lining drapes heavily over her shoulders and covers her lap. She holds a book with a dark green cover open in her left hand, to our right, and braces the baby’s chest with her other hand. Both she and the child have delicate, gold lines creating halos. The baby’s pudgy body also faces us, and he wears only a translucent white garment that comes down to his elbows and hips. A slate-blue band is around his middle. The child looks down and to the left with light hazel eyes. He and the baby heads above have round faces, snub noses, rosy cheeks, and parted pink lips. He lightly grips the edge of the woman’s robe with his left hand, to our right, and holds the other hand up with first two fingers and thumb raised. The pair sit on a wide, maroon-red ledge or bench behind a second ledge, which runs across the bottom edge of the painting. A small bird with a tawny brown body, yellow-tipped wings, and a red, black, and white head perches on the right side of the closer ledge, near the lower right corner. A dirt path winds across a grassy area beyond the ledges. A white rabbit crouches in the distance to our left and two four-legged animals, perhaps stags, are to the right. Towns on hills along a body of water reach into the deep distance, where ice-blue mountains line the horizon about two-thirds of the way up the composition. Streaks of pale pink and yellow over the mountains deepen to blue across the top of the painting. The two baby heads are each flanked by a pair of brown and gray wings, and they float in banks of pale gray clouds.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 10

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 84.8 x 68.3 cm (33 3/8 x 26 7/8 in.)
    framed: 107.8 x 92.6 x 9.8 cm (42 7/16 x 36 7/16 x 3 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.8

More About this Artwork

Article:  Who Is Vittore Carpaccio? Seven Things to Know

Carpaccio has been celebrated in Venice for centuries, but many of us are getting to know him for the first time.

Video:  Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice Exhibition Trailer

On view from November 20, 2022, to February 12, 2023, Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice Exhibition was the first retrospective of Carpaccio's work ever held outside Italy.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Mr. Nathan, Marseilles;[1] (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York);[2] sold February 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] According to Georges Wildenstein, in a 28 November 1955 letter to John Walker (in NGA curatorial files), Mr. Nathan was the Bâtonnier de l'Ordre des Avocats in Marseilles. Wildenstein did not know where Mr. Nathan acquired the painting, and was "not sure that any of his heirs would know either."
[2] According to Kress Foundation conservation records (in NGA curatorial files), the painting was restored in Italy by G. Marchig about 1952. It is not clear if Wildenstein & Co. owned the painting at this time.
[3] The bill of sale for fourteen paintings, including NGA 1961.9.8, is dated 10 February 1954 (copy in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1339).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2022

  • Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Fondazione Musei Civici, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2022-2023, no. 46, repro.

Bibliography

1955

  • Pignatti, Terisio. Carpaccio. Milan, 1955: 109, 121, repro. no. 97.

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: 46, no. 14, repro.

  • Laclotte, Michel. De Giotto à Bellini: les primitifs italiens dans les musées de France. Exh. cat. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1956: 231 n. 3.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 34.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:58, pl. 430.

1958

  • Fiocco, Giuseppe. Carpaccio. Revised edition. Novara, 1958: 32, figs. 76-77.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 150, repro.

1960

  • The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 6.

  • Perocco, Guido. Tutta la pittura del Carpaccio. Milan, 1960: 69, figs. 146-147.

1962

  • Lauts, Jan. Carpaccio. Paintings and Drawings. Complete Edition. Greenwich, CT, 1962: 34, 253, pls. 141, 142.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 303, repro.

  • Zampetti, Pietro, ed. Vittore Carpaccio. Catalogo della mostra. Exh. cat. Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1963: XXXIX.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 23.

1966

  • Zampetti, Pietro. Vittore Carpaccio. Florence, 1966: 76, fig. 41.

  • Muraro, Michelangelo. Carpaccio. Florence, 1966: CLVI, CLVII, repro.

1967

  • Perocco, Guido. L'opera completa del Carpaccio. Milan, 1967: 69, figs. 146-147.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 16, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 52-53, fig. 121.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 56, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:117-118; 2:pl. 80.

  • Sgarbi, Vittorio. Carpaccio. Bologna, 1979: 48.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 203, no. 241, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 75, repro.

1989

  • Valcanover, Francesco. Carpaccio. Florence, 1989: 51, fig. 61.

1991

  • Humfrey, Peter. Carpaccio: catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1991: 105, repro.

  • Gentili, Augusto. “Giovanni Bellini, la bottega, i quadri di devozioni.” Venezia Cinquecento 1, no. 2 (July-December 1991): 42.

1994

  • Sgarbi, Vittorio. Carpaccio. Milan, 1994: 148, 149, 218, cat. 28, repro.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2003: 193-196, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20174979

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