Madonna and Child

c. 1475

Antonello da Messina

Artist, Sicilian, c. 1430 - 1479

Shown from the waist up, a young woman embraces a baby in this vertical painting. They both have peachy skin, reddish-blond hair, and round faces. The woman is angled to our left and almost takes up the height of the painting. She looks down with gray eyes through lowered lids, under slender, arched brows. She has a straight nose and her pale pink lips are closed. Barely visible, a thin dotted white line spans her brow. A few loose, copper-colored tendrils frame her face under an azure-blue mantle that drapes over her head, shoulders, and arms. Under the mantle she wears a brick-red robe with a stylized, plant-like pattern in gold on the upper bodice and the cuff we can see. Her left elbow, on our right, rests on a sage-green ledge that runs along the bottom edge of the composition, and that hand dangles over the child’s leg. Her other hand curves around the baby’s back. The child is turned to our right to face the woman. He is wrapped in a cloak the same red as the woman's robe, and it has a thin gold border. He sits on a kelly-green cushion resting along the left side of the ledge. His head is turned to gaze off to our right with large hazel eyes under thin brows. He has a button nose and a rosy flush around his small pink mouth, which is slightly open. His right hand dips into the woman’s neckline while the other arm embraces her neck. His right leg stretches out toward her so one pudgy foot peeks out from under the red cloth. The horizon of the landscape behind them comes halfway up the painting. Sloping fields are dotted with trees. Low hills are ice blue in the hazy distance along the horizon, and the sky above is nearly white near the mountains, deepening to pale blue along the top edge.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 12

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil and tempera on panel transferred from panel

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 58.1 x 43.2 cm (22 7/8 x 17 in.)
    overall: 58.9 x 43.7 cm (23 3/16 x 17 3/16 in.)
    framed: 86.7 x 74.8 x 8.3 cm (34 1/8 x 29 7/16 x 3 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.30

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

William Graham [1817-1885], London.[1] Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex, by 1901;[2] sold 1927 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold 1 October 1928 to Clarence H. Mackay [1874-1938], Roslyn, New York;[3] sold to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] Ellis Waterhouse, in a note of 22 July 1980 in NGA curatorial files, suggests that the painting may have been lot 177 (Florentine School, Virgin and Child, bought by Colnaghi) in the Graham sale at Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 2-3 and 8-10 April 1886, 3rd day; nos. 167 and 169 (both listed as Unknown, Virgin and Child) are also possible candidates.
[2] Bernard Berenson, Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism, London, 1901: 52, note 1; Tancred Borenius, "La mostra di dipinti veneziani primitive al Burlington Fine Arts Club," RassA 12, no. 6 (June 1912): 89.
[3] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Series I Business Records, New York Sales Lists 1922-1928.
[4]] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1910

  • Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1910, no. 32, as Virgin and Child by School of Vicenza.

1912

  • A Collection of Pictures of the Early Venetian School and Other Works of Art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1912, no. 31 (no. 13 and pl. XII of illustrated catalogue titled Early Venetian Pictures and Other Works of Art).

1927

  • Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 37.

1979

  • Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 1, repro.

2013

  • Antonello da Messina, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto, 2013-2014, no. 18, repro.

2019

  • Antonello da Messina, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2019.

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. 71.

1930

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R., ed. Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections. London, 1930: n.p., pl. 13,

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 69, repro.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 7, no. 30.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 57.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 31, repro.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 48, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 302, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 9.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 2, repro.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 34-35, color repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 10, 645.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 14, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:16-17; 2:pl. 10.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 118, no. 101. color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 31, repro.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 577, fig. 721.

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: 36-41, color repro.

2006

  • Fahy, Everett. "Early Italian paintings in Washington and Philadelphia." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1241 (August 2006): 540.

2010

  • Rowley, Neville. “Pittura di luce: La manière claire dans la peinture du Quattrocento.” Ph.D. Diss., Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2010: 201, 355 n. 1035, fig. 387.

2016

  • Calogero, Giacomo A. “Piero della Francesca tra Bernard Berenson e Roberto Longhi: la nascita di un mito.” In Antonio Paolucci et al, eds. Piero della Francesca: Indagine su un mito. Exh. cat. Museo San Domenico, Forlì, 2016: 40, fig. 3.

  • Paolucci, Antonio, et al, eds. Piero della Francesca: Indagine su un mito. Exh. cat. Museo San Domenico, Forlì, 2016: 150.

2017

  • Serres, Karen. "Duveen's Italian framemaker, Ferruccio Vannoni." The Burlington Magazine 159, no. 1370 (May 2017): 373 n. 40.

Wikidata ID

Q20174181

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