The Baptism of Christ

c. 1740

Alessandro Magnasco

Artist, Italian, 1667 - 1749

A young man wearing only a loincloth kneels at a river’s edge, facing a man holding a bowl over his head with two winged angels nearby in this almost square painting. Three of the people are pale skinned, one is tan, and all have dark hair. Jesus kneels at the bottom center of the composition. Saint John the Baptist, the man to our right, has tanned skin and is wrapped in a tawny brown cloak. He holds a tall staff in one hand and extends the bowl over Jesus’s head with his other. A white dove hovers above in a butter-yellow starburst. The two angels to our left have dark gray wings that barely catch the light in the murky, active landscape. One wearing sand-brown robes kneels and looks toward Jesus. The other wears straw-yellow and looks away, a cloth held up in both hands. The river cuts back and forth across the composition from the background to our left, and it sweeps across the picture and churns off the right side of the painting. Trees tower up along the left edge next to the group, and a grass-covered outcropping thrusts high into the sky behind Jesus and Saint John the Baptist. Pale yellow and cream-white clouds puff across a vivid blue sky across the top of the picture. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the water and landscape.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 30

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 117.5 x 146.7 cm (46 1/4 x 57 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.4.27

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Private collection, Genoa.[1] Probably (Arthur Sambon, Paris), by 1929. Benno Geiger, Vienna.[2] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); purchased 1939 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] According to a note on the back of a photograph, NGA photographic archives.
[2] Benno Geiger, Magnasco, Bergamo, 1949: 87.
[3] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2084.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1929

  • Alessandro Magnasco, Galerie Sambon, Paris, 1929.

1940

  • Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, May-October 1940, no. 34.

  • Paintings by Alessandro Magnasco, Durlacher Brothers, New York, 1940, no. 1.

1996

  • Alessandro Magnasco 1667-1749, Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1996, no. 42, repro.

Bibliography

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 119, no. 528.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 250, repro. 142.

1943

  • Morandotti, Alessandro. Cinque pittori del settecento. Rome, 1943: 71.

1945

  • Geiger, Benno. Saggio d'un catalogo delle pitture di Alessandro Magnasco. Venice, 1945: 88.

1947

  • Evans, Grose. "The Subtle Satire of Magnasco." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 32 (1947): 42, figs. 1, 3.

1949

  • Geiger, Benno. Magnasco. Bergamo, 1949: 87, 152-153.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 70, color repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 237, repro.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 161, repro. pl. 155, color repro. pl. 157

1962

  • De Logu, Giuseppe. La natura morta italiana. Bergamo, 1962: 126.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 81.

1966

  • Dürst, Hans. Alessandro Magnasco. Teufen, 1966: 24, 104, fig. 31.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 71, repro.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 52, 54, color repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 117.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 112, fig. 210, 214.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 208, repro.

1977

  • Franchini Guelfi, Fausta. Alessandro Magnasco. Genoa, 1977: 132-134, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:293-295; 2:pl. 207.

1984

  • Grigoriva, Irina, and Asja Kantor-Gukouskja. I grandi disegni italiani delle collezioni dell'Ermitage di Leningrado. Milan, 1984: cat. 59.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 344, no. 469, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 241, repro.

1991

  • Franchini Guelfi, Fausta. Alessandro Magnasco. Soncino, 1991: 24.

1994

  • Muti, Laura. Alessandro Magnasco. Faenza, 1994: 267, nos. 390, 391 (repro.), as by Magnasco and Peruzzini.

1996

  • De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 178-184, color repro. 180.

2002

  • Grande Pittura Genovese dall'Ermitage da Luca Cambiaso a Magnasco. Exh. cat. Palazzo Ducale, Genoa. Saint Petersburg, Genoa, and Milan, 2002: 142.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 243, no. 194, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20177919

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