Elijah Fed by the Raven

c. 1510

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo

Artist, Brescian, c. 1480 - 1548 or after

Close to us, a bearded man with pale, peachy skin sits against a tall, narrow rock formation against a deep landscape in this vertical painting. The man has gray hair, deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, and his lips are downturned in his long beard. He sits with his knees and body angled to our left, but he turns to look up and to our right at a raven perched on the stone. His right elbow, to our left, is propped on a rocky ledge, and his head rests in that hand. His other veined, large hand rests on his knee. He wears a voluminous, long-sleeved, aquamarine-blue robe under a cloth tied around his neck. The cloth is rose-pink on the outside and appears to be lined with fleece on the underside. Near the top right corner of the composition, the raven leans toward the man holding a roll in its beak. The man’s bare feet rest on the dirt ground, and a couple of scrubby plants grow in the lower right corner of the painting, next to the rock on which the man sits. A river cuts through grassy land in the deep distance to the left of the rock formation. Several people gathered near the water’s edge point or look up into the sky, where a man kneeling in a chariot is drawn into a peach-toned cloud bank in the blue sky. Steep mountains on the horizon are icy blue.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 22

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel transferred to canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 168 x 135.6 cm (66 1/8 x 53 3/8 in.)
    framed: 199.1 x 166.2 x 8.6 cm (78 3/8 x 65 7/16 x 3 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.35

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly commissioned c. 1510 by a Carmelite monastery in Brescia, Italy; probably sold into the Manfrin collection, Venice, formed in part by Girolamo Manfrin [d. 1801]; by inheritance to Pietro Manfrin; by inheritance to Giulia-Giovanna Manfrin-Plattis [d. 1848/1849];[1] collection divided between Marquis Antonio-Maria Plattis and Bortolina Plattis, widow of Baron Sardagna; (Plattis sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 13 May 1870, no. 73). Charles A. Loeser [1864-1928], Florence, from the 1890s; by inheritance to his daughter, Mrs. Ronald Calnan, Milan; sold 1954 to (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence);[2] sold 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] The 1851 manuscript inventory is in the archives of the National Gallery, London. For more information on the dispersal of the Manfrin collection, see Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd ed., London, 1961: 135.
[2] According to Kress collection records in NGA curatorial files.
[3] On 7 June 1954 the Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi for sixteen paintings, including the NGA painting which was listed as The Prophet Elijah by Savoldo. In a draft of one of the documents prepared for the Count's signature in connection with the offer this painting is described as one "which came from my personal collection in Florence." The Count accepted the offer on 30 June 1954; the final payment for the purchase was ultimately made in early 1957, after the Count's death in 1955. (See copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files and The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/700).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1939

  • La Pittura Bresciana del Rinascimento, Palazzo Tosio-Martinengo, Brescia, 1939, no. 156, repro.

1990

  • Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo: tra Foppa Giorgione e Caravaggio, Moastero S. Giulia, Brescia, 1990, no. I.2, and Schirn Kunsthalle, (as Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo und die Renaissance zwischen Lombardei und Venetien, no. I.4).

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: 162, no. 63, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 162, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 121.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 108, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 89-90, fig. 215.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 322, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:418-419; 2:pl. 299.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 223, no. 274, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 369, repro.

1991

  • Morandotti, Alessandro. "La fortuna collezionistica della pittura gotica e rinascimentale fra Ottocento e Novecento." In Mauro Natale, ed. Pittura italiana dal '300 al '500. Milan, 1991: fig. 17.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 107, no. 82, color repro.

2007

  • Mancini, Vincenzo. “Un inedito Dosso giovanile e un Dosso mancato.” In Alessandro Ballarin, ed. Il Camerino delle Pitture di Alfonso I. 6: Dosso Dossi e La Pittura a Ferrara negli anni Del Ducato di Alfonso I. Atti del Convegno di Studio, Padova, Palazzo del Bo, 9-11 maggio 2001. Padua, 2007: 122.

2018

  • Casciello, Alberto Maria. "Per l'iconografia del profeta Elia di Girolamo Savoldo." Rivista dell'Istituto Nazionale d'Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte 73 (III S., XLI, 2018): 245-282, figs. 1 and 4, 5, 8, 9, 22-24 (details).

Wikidata ID

Q20175179

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