Sir Francis Cook, 1st bt.

British, 1817 - 1901

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In this horizontal painting, a crowd of more than two dozen men and women gathered shoulder to shoulder at the foot of three men hanging from wooden crosses nearly fill the scene. All the people have pale or ruddy skin. To our left of center, each of the crucified men is tied and nailed to a cross. Blood pours from their hands and feet, and from a gash over the central man’s right ribs. The men’s heads slump and their bodies sag. They are nude except for a red cloth across the central man’s hips and a small white loincloth on the man to our right. Two of the men wear crowns of thorns. The spear piercing the central man’s side is held by a man riding a white horse in the crowd below. At least three additional men in the crowd are on horseback. Many of the men are armed with spears, creating a bristle of vertical and diagonal lines over the group. The men and women wear robes and uniforms in shades of golden yellow, pine green, crimson and rust red, black, and cream white. A few men wear metal helmets, and one wears armor. Near the lower left corner, a woman wearing a navy-blue robe has fainted and is supported by two kneeling women while another woman and cleanshaven man look on, their fingers interlaced and held low. The smooth ground is grass green. A spindly tree with dark green leaves grows up the right side of the composition. Off in the distance beyond the tree, two buildings hint at a city. Blue clouds billow in the blue sky above.
Luca Signorelli, The Crucifixion, c. 1504/1505, tempera, oil, and gilding on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.75

The Crucifixion

Luca Signorelli · c. 1504/1505 · tempera, oil, and gilding on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.75

Cosmè Tura, The Annunciation with Saint Francis and Saint Louis of Toulouse [four panels], c. 1470/1480, tempera and distemper on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.6.a-d

The Annunciation with Saint Francis and Saint Louis of Toulouse [four panels]

Cosmè Tura · c. 1470/1480 · tempera and distemper on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.6.a-d

Cosmè Tura, The Archangel Gabriel [middle left panel], c. 1470/1480, tempera and distemper on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.6.b

The Archangel Gabriel [middle left panel]

Cosmè Tura · c. 1470/1480 · tempera and distemper on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.6.b

Five men and two women gather around an infant in a landscape in this vertical painting. The people all have pale or peachy skin with delicate facial features. Halos, like gold rings, float behind each head. All the men but one have beards, and most of the people’s lips are parted. The pudgy baby, Jesus, lies nude on a white cloth on the grassy ground near the bottom center of the composition. Three people kneel around and look down at him. To our left, a man wearing a fur-lined, powder-blue tunic under a rose-pink robe crosses his arms to touch opposite shoulders. A tall staff with a gold cross at the top rests in one elbow. Just behind Jesus, a woman wearing a gold crown and sage-green and pink robes holds a palm frond in one hand and extends the other over the baby. To our right, Mary wears a gold diadem and an apple-red dress. The cloak billowing behind her shoulders and fluttering to our right is emerald green on one side and silvery blue on the other. She also crosses her hands over her shoulders. Four men stand behind the group. Starting behind Mary, to our right, a man faces our left in profile. He holds a tall staff in one hand and points at Mary with the index finger of the other. The next man looks at the first with his hand held by his own face, the first two fingers splayed over his beard near his mouth. Next, another man looks down at Jesus with his hands together in prayer by the shoulder farther from us. These three men wear robes in canary yellow, burnt orange, dark blue, vivid green, or raspberry pink. The fourth man, along the left edge of the painting, is nude except for a coral-orange and yellow cloth tied around his hips. He has short brown hair and is cleanshaven. The feathered ends of three arrows project from his torso and three more wounds on his neck, shoulder, and thigh trickle blood. He holds an arrow by his side with one hand and reaches out with this other to hold the first two fingers and thumb up over Jesus. A gray stone building rises along the right edge of the composition behind the group. A person wearing a white tunic, red robe, and a straw-colored hat climbs a set of stairs there. That person holds a long staff over one shoulder and carries a lamb by the animal’s four legs in the other. In the sky above the main group, a bearded man a triangular halo over gray hair floats among about a dozen winged, child-like angels on a cloud bank. The man holds up one hand in blessing and holds an orb topped with a cross in the other hand. A bank of winged baby heads clusters in the distance, farther along the cloud bank. A few people, tiny in scale, sit or walk through the landscape, which leads back to ice-blue, craggy mountains. Cream-white and muted blue clouds fill the sky above. The artist signed the work as if he had left an inscribed tablet near Jesus. It reads, “M.D.XXXIIII. PERINO BONAC CORSSI FLORENTIN OPVS FACEBA.” The letters of the artist’s name, PERINO, are then combined into two monograms.
Perino del Vaga, The Nativity, 1534, oil on panel transferred to canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.31

The Nativity

Perino del Vaga · 1534 · oil on panel transferred to canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.31

A haloed man with his back to us approaches a crowd gathered in a crate-like box unexpectedly set into a rocky landscape in this square painting. The central man, Jesus, is covered with a white cloth across one shoulder and both hips, and he carries a white banner marked with a red cross. He is barefoot as he steps on the opening to the box, which is hinged along the bottom edge. The door has crushed a wild-haired demon with red-colored skin against the pebble-strewn ground below. More than two dozen men and women of all ages are crowded into the box, their round faces tipped back and looking toward Jesus. All the people have pale skin. Jesus reaches out his left hand to hold the wrist of a man with a long white beard and hair, who kneels to the left. This kneeling man wears a dark, fur-like garment, and a hoe is hooked across his bent knee. Jesus holds the hand of a second man, who also kneels, to our right. This man wears a canary-yellow robe edged in blue, and he grips Jesus’s wrist with his second hand. A man wearing a purple toga over another fur-like garment stands behind. The box-like structure is set within a massive, striated boulder. More rocky cliffs rise to each side of the central form, and the sky above is sapphire blue.
Benvenuto di Giovanni, Christ in Limbo, probably 1491, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.54

Christ in Limbo

Benvenuto di Giovanni · probably 1491 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.54

About two dozen men and women are gathered mainly in three groups in a grassy landscape in this nearly square panel. The action revolves around a man, Jesus, carrying a cross at the center of the composition. The people all have pale skin and wear robes, dresses, or tunics tomato red, cobalt blue, spruce green, deep yellow, gray, or white. Jesus wears a rose-pink robe, and blood trickles across his head from a ring of thorns thrust down over his shoulder-length brown hair. His flat, disk-like halo is gold with a red cross like a plus sign, and a tall wooden cross is braced across one shoulder. Two gaunt men in gray tunics jab and jeer at Jesus, mouths pulled back to show their teeth. A group of about seven men look on from over Jesus’s shoulder, including one man with gold-colored hair and gold armor. Another armored man wearing a helmet lies back on a rocky outcropping low to the ground in the lower right corner. The second group gathers behind three people also with halos to our right. The woman at the front center holds her hands out, palms up. Her lapis-blue cloak covers her head over a white veil and falls to her feet over a ruby-red dress. A woman with loose, blond hair looks up and raises her hands overhead to our left, and a fresh-faced young person stands to our right. One more person in the crowd of about six people behind this trio has a halo as well. Two boys perch in trees over this group, looking down between forks in the branches. The third group is to our left, and they gather behind a pair of men on white or brown horses. Pebbles are strewn on the dirt ground under the bare feet of Jesus and his tormentors. Grassy fields dotted with trees stretch into the distance to a town of spires, towers, and turrets on the horizon, which comes about three-quarters of the way up this composition. A few thin clouds skit across the blue sky above.
Benvenuto di Giovanni, Christ Carrying the Cross, probably 1491, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.52

Christ Carrying the Cross

Benvenuto di Giovanni · probably 1491 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.52

Cosmè Tura, Saint Louis of Toulouse, c. 1470/1480, tempera and distemper on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.6.d

Saint Louis of Toulouse

Cosmè Tura · c. 1470/1480 · tempera and distemper on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.6.d

Cosmè Tura, The Virgin Annunciate [middle right panel], c. 1470/1480, tempera and distemper on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.6.c

The Virgin Annunciate [middle right panel]

Cosmè Tura · c. 1470/1480 · tempera and distemper on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.6.c

Cosmè Tura, Saint Francis [far left panel], c. 1470/1480, tempera and distemper on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.6.a

Saint Francis [far left panel]

Cosmè Tura · c. 1470/1480 · tempera and distemper on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.6.a

A young woman sits with a small child standing on her lap on an ornate throne as a third person, tiny in scale, kneels and looks up from the lower left corner in this tall, narrow, vertical painting, which has an arched top. The woman and child have pale skin and flat gold halos behind their heads, and the tiny person near the corner has light brown skin. The woman’s body faces us and her head tilts to her right, our left, toward the child, but she cuts her pale eyes down and slightly to our right. She has a delicate, long nose and her small lips are closed in a straight line. A white veil covering blond hair is, in turn, covered with a midnight-blue mantle that falls over her head, shoulders, and body. The underside of her cloak is emerald green where it turns back down over her chest and across her lap. The bottom hem is lined with a wide decorative band with scrolling vines and leaves in gold, and it pools around her feet on the floor. She wears a raspberry-red dress with gold vines over the chest and pearls lining the neckline. With her left hand, on our right, she supports the child on one hip. Her other hand braces the stem of the green apple the baby holds in both hands. Short, blond curls frame the baby’s face. He looks up and to our right with light eyes. He has a short, rounded nose and his lips are parted. His head is large like a baby's, but the proportions of his torso, arms, and legs more closely resemble those of an adult. He wears a pale, rose-pink tunic edged with gold, and his legs and feet are bare. The elaborate throne has an arched top that mirrors the top edge of the arched panel. An inscription in the stone up along the curve of the throne reads, “MEMENTO MEI MATER DEI REGINA CELI LETARE.” A garland of pale green and red fruit, probably apples, hangs behind the woman’s head. There are fantastical creatures where the arms of the throne would be. Carved from the same nickel-gray stone, each arm is made up of dog's face, with mouth wide open and braced against the seat of the chair. A husk-like covering curves up and back to a section of fish's scales, and each arm ends with an ornament like a bunch of grapes where it meets the back. A scarlet-red cloth hangs behind the thorne, against a gold wall, with a salmon-pink floor below. The miniature kneeling man near the lower right corner is only ankle high. His dark hair is cut into a ring around his head. He has a darker complexion and wrinkles around his mouth. He wears long, topaz-blue garment over a black robe. He holds his hands in prayer and looks up at the woman and baby, lips parted. Scaled to the woman, a jeweled crown sits on the floor nearby, projecting behond the front face of a panel of stone with a shell painted at its center.
Carlo Crivelli, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Donor, 1470, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.6

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Donor

Carlo Crivelli · 1470 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.6

Bibliography

1885

  • Robinson, John Charles. "The Gallery of Pictures by the Old Masters, Formed by Francis Cook, Esq., of Richmond." Art Journal 1885:133-137

1932

  • Brockwell, Maurice W. Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey. London, 1932

2004

  • Danziger, Elon. "The Cook collection, its founder and its inheritors." The Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1216 (July 2004): 444-458.