The Madonna of Humility

c. 1430

Fra Angelico

Painter, Florentine, c. 1395 - 1455

A woman sits in the center of this vertical panel painting and gazes down at a baby lying across her lap while two winged angels hold up a red, gold, and black brocade-like patterned cloth behind her. All the people have pale skin, pink cheeks, blond hair, and flat, gold halos. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our right, and she holds her hands crossed over her chest as she gazes down at the baby. The woman has a straight, pointed nose and a small, pink-lipped mouth. Her azure-blue robe covers her head and drapes over much of the crimson-red dress beneath. The edge of the robe and cuff of her dress are trimmed in gold. The baby lies with his arms slightly raised, and he looks up at the woman. His hips and legs are wrapped with sheer white cloth. The angels in the upper corners of the panel both wear robes in the same azure blue of the woman, and the garments have a gold band around the high waist and gold around the neckline. They look at the woman and hold up the cloth that falls behind and under her and the baby.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 60.7 x 45.2 cm (23 7/8 x 17 13/16 in.)
    support: 62.8 x 47.2 cm (24 3/4 x 18 9/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.5

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Anonymous collection or dealer, Italy; acquired in the late 19th century by Edward Steinkopff [1837-1906], Lydhurst, Waringlid, Haywards Heath, Sussex;[1] by inheritance to his daughter, Mary Margaret Steinkopff Stewart-Mackenzie [later Baroness Seaforth, d. 1933], Brahan Castle, Highland, Scotland. family of the barons of Castelmuro, by 1935;[2] (Robert Frank, Ltd., London);[3] (Rudolf Heinemann [Pinakos, Inc], Lugano) half share with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York and London); purchased 30 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] The date of Edward Steinkopff's death is given in the Knoedler prospectus, in NGA curatorial files. A sale of the collection of "the late Edward Steinkopff" took place on 26 February 1909 at Christie's in London. Steinkopff's daughter (and only child) was married in 1899 to James Alexander Francis Humberston Stewart-Mackenzie, who was created the 1st baron Seaforth in 1921 and who died in 1923.
[2] A photograph in the archives of the Museo di Castello Sforzesco in Milan (no. 2430 D; a print is also preserved in the photographic collection of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence) shows the NGA painting repainted, probably after suffering a radical cleaning most likely having occurred at the time of the change in ownership in the mid-1930s. The photograph probably dates before 28 April 1936, when the director of the museum in Milan, Giorgio Nicodemi, wrote a letter (in NGA curatorial files), documenting the fact that the painting, which he hoped would be donated to the Castello Sforzesco, had already been shown to him. According to a note attached to the negative of the photograph in the photographic archive of the museum, the painting, owned by the family of the barons of Castelmuro, was at that time (1935) exhibited at the Museo Navale in Milan.
[3] See Knoedler stock book no. 8, p. 156 and Knoedler sales book no. 13, p. 366, M. Knoedler and Co. records, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (copies NGA curatorial files). According to a letter from R. Heinemann, Lugano, to C. Henschel of the firm M. Knoedler & Co., New York (copy in NGA curatorial files), the painting was shipped to New York on 29 April 1936.
[4] The date of purchase is given in the Mellon collection records, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1935

  • Museo Navale, Milan, 1935.

Bibliography

1937

  • Cortissoz, Royal. An Introduction to the Mellon Collection. Boston, 1937: repro. 2.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "New Items in the Mellon Collection." Art News 35 (13 February, 1937): 10-11.

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 5, no. 5.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 57.

1944

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 22, color repro.

1945

  • Grassi, Luigi. “Museo Nazionale di Washington.” Arti figurative 1, nos. 1-2 (1945): 233.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 15, repro.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 33, repro. 31.

  • Meiss, Millard. Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death. Princeton, 1951: 140 n. 32.

1952

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. Fra Angelico. London, 1952: 205, as Close to Zanobi Strozzi.

1957

  • Gómez-Moreno, Carmen. “A Reconstructed Panel by Fra Angelico and Some New Evidence for the Chronology of His Work.” The Art Bulletin 39, no. 3 (September 1957): 184, 192 n. 35.

1958

  • Salmi, Mario. Il Beato Angelico. Spoleto, 1958: 17, 102, pl. 22b.

1963

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:15.

1964

  • Orlandi, Stefano. Beato Angelico. Florence, 1964: 38, as Attributed to Fra Angelico.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 8.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 1, repro.

1970

  • Baldini, Umberto. L’opera completa dell’Angelico. Milan, 1970: 89, cat. 15, repro.

  • Huter, Carl. "Gentile da Fabriano and the Madonna of Humility." Arte veneta 24 (1970): 34 n. 6, as Attributed to Fra Angelico.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 9, 645.

1974

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. Fra Angelico. Ithaca, NY, 1974: 233, fig. 107, as by Zanobi Strozzi.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 12, repro.

1977

  • Cole, Diane Elyse. "Fra Angelico: His Role in Quattrocento Painting and Problems of Chronology." Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1977: 562-564, cat. 107, repro., as tentatively by a follower of imitator of Fra Angelico.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:13-14; 2:pl. 8, as Attributed to Fra Angelico.

1982

  • Christiansen, Keith. Gentile da Fabriano. London, 1982: 38, 99, fig. 38, as Attributed to Fra Angelico.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 86, no. 41, color repro.

  • Alce, Venturino. “Cataloghi e indici delle opere del Beato Angelico.” In Beato Angelico. Miscellanea di Studi. Rome, 1984: 354.

  • Fallani, Giovanni. Vita e opere di Fra Giovanni Angelico. Florence, 1984: 174.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 19, repro.

1990

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and Serena Padovani. Early Italian Painting 1290-1470. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. London, 1990: 26, 27.

1991

  • Cadogan, Jean. Wadsworth Atheneum Paintings Catalogue. II. Italy and Spain: Fourteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. Hartford, CT, 1991: 44.

1992

  • De Marchi, Andrea. Gentile da Fabriano: Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del gotico. Milan, 1992: 191 n. 96, as Attributed to Fra Angelico.

1993

  • Alce, Venturino. Angelicus pictor. Vita, opere e teologia del Beato Angelico. Bologna, 1993: 375.

1996

  • Spike, John T. Fra Angelico. New York, London, and Paris 1996: 265, cat. 142, repro., as Attributed to Fra Angelico.

1998

  • Bonsanti, Giorgio. Beato Angelico. Catalogo completo. Florence, 1998: 134, cat. 47.

2001

  • Kanter, Laurence. “An Annunciation by Fra Angelico.” In Clay Dean, ed. Rediscovering Fra Angelico: A Fragmentary History. Exh. cat. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 2001: 34, fig. 14..

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: 9-13, color repro.

2005

  • Kanter, Laurence, and Pia Palladino. Fra Angelico. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005: 161, 164, fig. 90.

2006

  • Fahy, Everett. "Early Italian paintings in Washington and Philadelphia." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1241 (August 2006): 538.

Inscriptions

upper center in Virgin's halo: AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DO[MINVS TECVM] (Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; from Luke 1:28)

Wikidata ID

Q20173476

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