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Inscription

upper center on the Madonna's halo: REGINA CELI LETA[RE ALLELUIA] (O Queen of Heaven, rejoice!)

Provenance

Possibly George Ashburnham, 3rd earl of Ashburnham [1760-1830], Florence and Ashburnham Place, Battle, Sussex; by inheritance to his son, Bertram Ashburnham, 4th earl of Ashburnham [1797-1878], Ashburnham Place;[1] by inheritance to his son, Bertram Ashburnham, 5th earl of Ashburnham [1840-1913], Ashburnham Place; by inheritance to his daughter, Lady Mary Catherine Charlotte Ashburnham [d. 1953], Ashburnham Place; (Robert Langton Douglas, London);[2] sold June 1919 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] The collection was formed by the fourth Earl and by his father George, the third Earl of Ashburnham. As there is no record of their collecting activities, it is not clear which of the two acquired the individual items. After the death of the fourth Earl, however, no paintings were added to the collection. See The Ashburnham Collections, Part I. Catalogue of Paintings and Drawings..., Sotheby's, London, 24 June 1953: 3-4.

[2] The Duveen Brothers Records list the painting as "Ashburnham Colln." and "ex L. Douglas" (copy in NGA curatorial files; X Book, Reel 422, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America, New York, 1941: no. 96, specifies that the panel was formerly in the collections of the fifth earl of Ashburnham and his daughter. It is known that Robert Langton Douglas was in touch with the Ashburnham family in order to acquire paintings from their collection; see Denys Sutton, "Robert Langton Douglas," Apollo 109 (1979): 452. See also letter from Douglas to Fowles dated 1 May 1941, Duveen Brothers Records, Box 244 (reel 299).

[3] The Duveen Brothers Records indicate that the painting was paid for on 10 June 1919 (copy in NGA curatorial files; see note 2).

[4] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Exhibition History
1932
Exhibition of Italian Renaissance Art, Wadsworth Atheneum and Morgan Memorial, Hartford, 1932, no. 14.
Bibliography
1941
Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 96, repro.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 130, no. 9.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 152.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 19, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 88.
1966
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 156, fig. 423.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 77, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 230, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:329; 2:pl. 239.
1979
Sutton, Denys. "Robert Langton Douglas. Part III." Apollo 109 (June 1979): 448 [166] fig. 3, 452 [170].
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 265, 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: 505-508, color repro.
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