Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape

c. 1525

Dosso Dossi

Artist, Ferrarese, active 1512 - 1542

A pale, nearly nude young woman perches on a rock under a tree surrounded by small animals including dogs, deer, and birds, in this horizontal landscape painting. Her body faces us as, lips parted, she looks away to our left. She is covered only by an olive-green drape over her left thigh, on our right. She cradles what appears to be a tall stone tablet in her left arm and touches the inscribed surface with her right hand. White, buttercup-yellow, and crimson-red flowers crown her long blond hair. Her smooth pink skin stands out against the brown bark of the tree trunk behind her. By her right knee, a small brown doe stands looking at her. Closer to us, a white, wading bird dips its beak into a pool of water in the lower right corner of the painting. A large book of diagrams lies open next to the woman's foot, on the slate-gray ground. A small, white dog crouches next to the book on our right in front of a sleek, brown dog and a buck with antlers, and all face the woman in profile. In the trees above, a white hawk perches near the upper right corner of the canvas, and an owl sits on a branch over the woman’s head. Beyond the woman to our left, a steep bank is topped by wispy trees and shrubs. A sandy path meanders past the bank toward a wooden building in the distance. Delicate trees with rust-red and gold canopies frame the building, while a topaz-blue haze behind it suggests a forest beyond. Full, gray clouds fill the sky overhead above a band of pale light on the horizon.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 100.8 × 136.1 cm (39 11/16 × 53 9/16 in.)
    framed: 129.2 × 164.5 × 10.16 cm (50 7/8 × 64 3/4 × 4 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.4.49

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

William Graham [1817-1885], London; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 2-3 and 8-10 April 1886, 5th day, no. 417); (Colnaghi, London and New York); Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex; sold 1927 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[1] sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] According to Kress records in NGA curatorial files.
[2] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/535.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1894

  • School of Ferrara-Bologna, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1894, no. 54, pl. XVII.

1896

  • Works of Old Masters, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1896, no. 110.

1909

  • National Loan Exhibition, Grafton Galleries, London, 1909-1910, no. 87, repro.

1927

  • Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 22.

1930

  • Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930, no. 407 (no. 337 of commemorative catalogue published 1931; not in souvenir catalogue).

1932

  • Exhibition of Italian Renaissance Art, Wadsworth Atheneum and Morgan Memorial, Hartford, 1932, no. 19.

1933

  • Italian Paintings from the XIV to the XVI Century, Detroit Institute of Fine Arts, March 1933, no. 83.

  • Esposizione della Pittura Ferrarese del Rinascimento, Ferrara, May-October 1933, no. 184, repro.

1939

  • Classics of the Nude, Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1939, no. 7, as Circe.

  • Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 82.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 716.

1998

  • Dosso Dossi: Court Painter in Renaissance Ferrara, Exhibit Halls, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1998-1999, no. 3, repro.

2011

  • Heroínas [Heroines], Fundación Caja Madrid, 2011, no. 62, repro.

Bibliography

1914

  • Borenius, Tancred. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson. London, 1914: no. 60.

1944

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 72, color repro.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 49, repro.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 103, repro.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 94-97, repro.

1956

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 28, repro.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 44.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 168, repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 140, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 43.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds, A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:164, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 36, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 73, fig. 176.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:114.

1974

  • Shapiro, Maurice L. "The Widener Orpheus." Studies in the History of Art vol. 6 (1974):24-25, repro. p. 28.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 110, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:167-168; 2:pl. 116.

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 45, pl. 28.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 192, no. 222, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 134, repro.

1988

  • Sebag-Montefiore, Charles. "Three Lost Collections of London." National Art Collections Fund Magazine 38 (Christmas 1988): 54.

1997

  • Bronstein, Léo. Kabbalah and Art, New Brunswick and London, 1997, no. 3, repro.

2003

  • Gregori, Mina, ed. In the Light of Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece. 2 vols. Exh. cat. National Gallery and Alexandros Souzos Museum, Athens, 2003-2004: 1:375.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 88-88, no. 63, color repro.

2011

  • Boskovits, Miklós, ed. The Alana Collection, Newark, Delaware, USA. Vol. II: Italian Paintings and Sculptures from the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century. Florence, 2011: 110.

Wikidata ID

Q3677473

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