Madonna and Child

c. 1475

Bartolomeo Vivarini

Artist, Venetian, c. 1430/1432 - c. 1491 or c. 1499

Bartolomeo Vivarini

Attributed to

Shown from the waist up, a woman behind a stone ledge and in front of a landscape holds a chubby baby tucked into one elbow in this vertical painting. Both have pale skin, flushed cheeks, and blond hair surrounded by gold-edged halos. The woman looks down and to our left with hooded eyes. Her pink lips are closed over a pointed, cleft chin. A translucent white veil brushes across her high forehead and is covered by a marine-blue mantle that drapes over her head and shoulders. The mantle is edged in gold, and the plum-purple lining is visible where it is rolled back over her head and forearms. Her apple-red dress is cinched at the waist and falls in vertical folds. She holds her left hand, to our right, up with the palm facing in and the fingers gesturing toward the child. He half sits in the crook of her other elbow and rests his feet on a white pillow, which is on the gray stone ledge. The child wears a translucent white, long-sleeved garment under a pine-green tunic, and a butter-yellow cloth is wrapped around his hips. A purple banner hanging behind the woman is about the width of her collarbone, and a deep landscape to each side has trees, cliffs, and walking paths leading into the distance under piles of white clouds drifting across a watery blue sky.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 13

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 53 x 41.5 cm (20 7/8 x 16 5/16 in.)
    overall (area once covered by engaged frame): 54.4 x 42.6 cm (21 7/16 x 16 3/4 in.)
    framed: 72.39 x 60.01 x 5.08 cm (28 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 2 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1939.1.118

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Sir Edward Smithson, Surrey; (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold 23 June 1933 to the Samuel H. Kress Collection, New York;[1] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] The bill of sale was for a total of ten paintings (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1323.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1938

  • Exhibition of Venetian Painting From the Fifteenth Century through the Eighteenth Century, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June-July 1938, no. 76, repro.

  • Special Exhibition of Venetian Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Seattle Art Museum; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama, August-October 1938, no catalogue.

Bibliography

1923

  • Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 18(1936):131.

1938

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. “The Great Venetians: Paintings in American Collections.” Art News 36, no. 29 (16 July 1938): 89.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. “The Venetians in California.” Art News 36 (16 July 1938): 8.

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 212, no. 229.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 244, repro. 207.

1944

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: repro. no. 87

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 88, repro.

1946

  • Longhi, Roberto. Viatico per cinque secoli di pittura veneziana. Florence, 1946: 57, pl. 50.

1954

  • Godfrey, Frederick M. Early Italian Painters, 1415-1495. London, 1954: 17, pl. 27.

1957

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:203.

1958

  • Vaudoyer, Jean-Louis. La Peinture vénitienne. Paris, 1958: pl. 44.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 135, repro.

1961

  • Pallucchini, Rodolfo. I Vivarini (Antonio, Bartolomeo, Alvise). Venice, 1961: 44-45, 123, pl. 174.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 136.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 124, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 32-33, fig. 73.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 212, 320.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 368, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:539; 2:pl. 375.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 427, repro.

1988

  • Pallucchini, Rodolfo. “Una ‘Madonna’ inedita di Bartolomeo Vivarini.” Arte Veneta 42 (1988): 136.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 562.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 683-685, color repro.

2023

  • Müller, Rebecca. Die Vivarini: Bildproduktion in Venedig 1440 bis 1505. Regensburg, 2023: 136, 345, 381 n. 230, 383-384, 471-472, fig. 72.

Wikidata ID

Q20174192

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