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A young, pale-skinned woman with long, blond hair and wearing a coral-red gown stands on a pedestal before a landscape filled with people in this vertical painting. The painting has an arched top, and the woman who fills most of the view is Claudia Quinta. Her hair is adorned with strands of pearls, and a larger pearl hangs from a piece of jewelry like a brooch at the top center over her forehead. A sheer veil covers the back of her head. Her body faces us but she turns her head slightly to our right, so she gazes at us from the corners of her light hazel eyes. A pearl necklace with a square gold, sapphire-blue jewel and pearl pendant encircles her neck. The brown sleeves of her dress are flecked densely with short gold lines, and white fabric shows at gaps over the elbows. The red bodice has a high waist tied with a brown belt, which also holds sheer fabric in place so it falls to her knees over the long red skirt. The skirt is bordered with a gold geometric design along the bottom hem, which stops just short of her sandaled feet. In her right hand, on our left, she holds a small, navy-blue boat with a gold figure standing in it. Her other hand rests by her left thigh, to our right. She balances near the front edge of the rectangular pedestal, which is pale violet purple. On the front face, two winged, chubby children are painted white to resemble stone carvings. They brace a panel bordered in gold. The plaque has a teal-blue background, and gold letters read, “CLAVDIA CASTA FVI NEC VVLGVS CREDIDIT AMEN ET TAMEN ID QVOD ERAM TESTIS MIHI PRORA PROBAVIT CONSILIVM ET VIRTVS SVPERANT MATERQVE DEORVM ALMA PLACET POPVLO ET PER ME HVNC ORATA TVETVR.” Beyond Claudia Quinta a river winds in a tight S-curve through dark green hills. Farther back, to our left, a group of people with thin, elongated bodies dressed in blue, light brown, and orange walk in front of a tall dark blue building as they head toward a river on the right side. The building has an arched opening and a tower topped with a taupe-brown spire. To our right of Claudia Quinta, a woman wearing a rose-pink dress holds a rope around the prow of a boat at the edge of the river. Like the boat held by Claudia Quinta, it is navy blue and has the same shape. The pale lavender-purple river continues into the distance, where it meets rocky outcroppings along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. A pale blue sky above is filled with wispy bands of clouds.

Neroccio de' Landi

Claudia Quinta, c. 1490/1495

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 8

Medium

tempera on poplar panel

Dimensions

overall: 105 x 46 cm (41 5/16 x 18 1/8 in.)

framed: 128.91 x 77.47 x 8.26 cm (50 3/4 x 30 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1937.1.12

Artists / Makers

Neroccio de' Landi (painter) Sienese, 1447 - 1500

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower center on the tablet of the pedestal: CLAVDIA CASTA FVI NEC VVLGVS CREDIDIT AMEN / ET TAMEN ID QVOD ERAM TESTIS MIHI PRORA PROBAVIT / CONSILIVM ET VIRTVS SVPERANT MATERQVE DEORVM / ALMA PLACET POPVLO ET PER ME HVNC ORATA TVETVR (I was Claudia the chaste, but men trusted not in my troth. And yet that which I was, the prow proved as my witness. Prudence and virtue triumph, and the Mother of the Gods [Cybele], she, the gracious one, is pleasing to the people and protects them when invoked through me)

Provenance

Probably commissioned by the Piccolomini family, Siena. art market, Florence, c. 1850/1860; Louis Charles Timbal [1821-1880], Paris; sold 1872 with his collection to Gustave Dreyfus [1837-1914], Paris;[1] his heirs;[2] purchased 1930 with the entire Dreyfus collection by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[3] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] Timbal sold his first collection, assembled over the previous 20 years, during the German siege of Paris on 29 November 1872 to Dreyfus; see Douglas Lewis, "Gustave Dreyfus," in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, London, 1996: 9:298.

[2] See Dora Landau, "Notes from Abroad," International Studio (August 1930): 62, and August L. Mayer, "Die Sammlung Gustave Dreyfus," Pantheon 4, no. 1 (January 1931): 17-18.

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

Associated Names

Dreyfus, Gustave
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Piccolomini Family
Timbal, Louis-Charles

Exhibition History

1932: Exhibition of Italian Renaissance Art, Wadsworth Atheneum and Morgan Memorial, Hartford, 1932, no. 16, as The Vestal Virgin, Claudia Quinta.

1993: Francesco di Giorgio e il Rinascimento a Siena 1450-1500, Chiesa di Sant'Agostino, Siena, Italy, 1993, no. 103b, repro.

2007: Renaissance Sienna: Art for a City, National Gallery, London, 2007-2008, no. 72, repro.

Bibliography

1931: Mayer, August L. "Die Sammlung Gustave Dreyfus." Pantheon 7 (January 1931):17, repro.

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: nos. 121-122, repros.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 128, 139-140, no. 12.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 158.

1949: Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 18, repro.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 300, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 97.

1968: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:252, 293, as entirely by Neroccio except for the background, by the Master of the Griselda Panels.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 85, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 254, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:345-347; 2:pl. 252.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 293, repro.

1997: Chelazzi Dini, Giulietta, Alessandro Angelini, and Bernardina Sani. Sienese Painting From Duccio to the Birth of the Baroque. New York, 1997: 318-319.

1998: Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. "Virgin/Virginity." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:905.

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: 536-539, color repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 38, no. 27, color repro.

2015: Sallay, Dóra. Corpus of Sienese Paintings in Hungary 1420-1510. Florence, 2015: 272, 274-276, fig. 5d.