Pax with the Crucifixion between Two Thieves, before a Walled City

c. 1460/1464

Maso Finiguerra

Sculptor, Florentine, 1426 - 1464

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    nielloed silver plate in a gilded bronze frame

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall (with gold frame and wood backing): 19.37 × 12.07 × 3.18 cm (7 5/8 × 4 3/4 × 1 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.177

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Giuseppe Molini (1772-1856), Florence; [1] Gian Giacomo Trivulzio (1774-1831), Milan by 1826, possibly since 1821; [2] (Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, 1878-1955, Rome and Florence); [3] purchased 26 June 1935 by Samuel H. Kress (1863-1955), New York; gift 27 September 1950 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Laura Aldovini, I Nielli Trivulzio. Storia, Tecnica, Collezionismo, Milan, 2021:250-251.
[2] Aldovini, I Nielli Trivulzio, 250.
[3] The bill of sale included sculptures, maiolicas, furniture, antique velvets, paintings, and enamels, for a total of one hundred objects. Copy in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, (https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/acquisitions/ACQ143).
[4] An affidavit of 21 August 1956 by Herbert L. Spencer, executive director, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, states the Trivulzio collection of nielli and enamels were given by Samuel H. Kress to the Foundation on 27 September 1950; original in National Gallery of Art Archives. Secretary and General Counsel Records – Major Donor Files; copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1874

  • Esposizione storica dell’arte industriale, Salone dei Giardini di Porta Venezia, Milan, 1874, no. 18 or no. 43.

1973

  • Prints of the Italian Renaissance, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1973, no. 1.

Bibliography

1975

  • Oberhuber, Konrad. "A Niello Plaque in Washington." The Burlington Magazine 117 (October 1975): 672, figs. 63 and 64.

  • Toesca, Ilaria. "Some Niello Plaques for the 'Crucifixion'." The Burlington Magazine 117 (June 1975): 377.

1976

  • Oberhuber, Konrad. "Vasari e il mito di Maso Finiguerra." In Il Vasari storiografo e artista. Atti del congresso internazionale nel IV centenario della morte, Arezzo-Firenze, 2-8 settembre 1974. Florence, 1976: 383-393, fig. 76.

1996

  • Casciaro, Raffaele and Franco Moro. "Proposte e aggiunte per Giovan Pietro, Giovanni Ambrogio e Ludovico De Donati." Rassegna di Studi e di Notizie 20 (1996): 47, 121 n. 12.

1998

  • Whitaker, Lucy. "Maso Finiguerra and early Florentine printmaking." In Drawing 1400-1600: Invention and Innovation. Stuart Currie, ed. Ashgate, 1998: 61 n. 9.

2015

  • Sotto il segno di Leonardo, Exh. cat., Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan, 2015, under no. 13, repro.

2021

  • Aldovini, Laura. I Nielli Trivulzio. Storia, Tecnica, Collezionismo. Milan, 2021: 24, 40, 52, 100, 103, 104, 14, 109, 133, 178, 201, 250-252, 283, 285, 294, 304, fig. 12, 69, no. 86, pl. XXV, XXVa.

Inscriptions

Inscription, in elegiac hexameter, on the frame: Ipse Dolor reprobos comitor dignissima merces / At bonitas iusto sancta dolore caret
(I, pain, follow sinners as well-earned wages; but holy goodness is free from deserved pain)

Wikidata ID

Q63854733

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