Madonna of Humility

c. 1435/1440

Sassetta

Artist, Sienese, probably 1392 - 1450

Sassetta

A woman holding a nude child sits against a gold background in this vertical painting, which has a long, pointed top. They both have pale skin tinged with green, blond hair, delicate features, and pink cheeks. The woman sits on a cushion with her body angled to our left and holds the baby on her right knee. She tips her head and looks down at the child with hooded eyes. She wears a cream-white dress under a midnight-blue cloak lined with forest green. She braces the baby’s torso with her right hand, to our left, and holds the pale pink cloth on which he sits with the other. The child’s body faces her, and he touches the clasp of her cloak with one hand. The other hand rests on her shoulder. Both have decorative, patterned halos punched into the gold background. The white cushion is patterned with white-petaled flowers with tiny red centers. The brown floor is speckled with white dots and perhaps minuscule flowers, but the area is dark and difficult to make out. A bearded man shown from the waist up floats overhead in a much smaller scale. He has a gold halo, blond hair, and wears a yellow robe. Six pink wings are lined up down his arms. Gold rays fan down from his body to reach a white bird between him and the woman. The panel has molding around its edges and flame-like carvings up the pointed top.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 48.4 x 21.2 cm (19 1/16 x 8 3/8 in.)
    framed: 62.9 x 25.4 cm (24 3/4 x 10 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1939.1.246

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(M.F. Steinmeyer, Lucerne), by 1929.[1] Edward Hutton [1874-1969], London. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence);[2] sold October 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] According to Raimond van Marle, "Quadri senesi sconosciuti," La Diana 4 (1929): 309-310. The painting is also listed as belonging to the same owner by Bernard Berenson, The Italian Painters of the Renaissance, Oxford,1932 reprint: 512, and Italian ed. reprint, trans. Emilio Cecchi, Milan, 1936: 440. In a letter of 28 February 1951 to John Walker (in NGA curatorial files), Edward Forbes writes that he thought the NGA painting was the same as one he saw "for sale in Steinmeyer's Gallery in Lucerne in 1933 or 1935."
[2] Hutton's and Contini-Bonacossi's ownership is stated by John Pope-Hennessy, Sassetta, London, 1939: 91 n. 31.
[3] The bill of sale for eleven paintings, including NGA 1939.1.246, is dated 17 October 1936 (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1383.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1907

  • Perkins, Frederick Mason. "Sassetta." In Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 29(1935):482.

1929

  • Marle, Raimond van. “Quadri senesi sconosciuti.” La Diana 4 (1929): 309-310, pl. 10.

1932

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932: 512.

1933

  • Gengaro, Maria Luisa. “Il primitivo del Quattrocento senese: Stefano di Giovanni, detto il Sassetta.” La Diana 8 (1933): 23.

1936

  • Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936: 440.

1939

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. Sassetta. London, 1939: 68-69, 91 n. 31, pl. 15a.

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 178, no. 357, as Madonna and Child..

  • Brandi, Cesare. “Giovanni di Paolo.” La Arti 3 (1940-1941): 249 n. 34.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 246, repro. 184.

1947

  • Brandi, Cesare. Giovanni di Paolo. Florence, 1947: 73 n. 34.

1948

  • Graziani, Alberto. "Il Maestro dell'Osservanza." Proporzioni 2 (1948): 80.

1949

  • Brandi, Cesare. Quattrocentisti senesi. Milan, 1949: 55, 190 n. 32.

1953

  • Sandberg Vavalà, Evelyn. Sienese Studies. Florence, 1953: 236.

1957

  • Carli, Enzo. Il Sassetta e il Maestro dell’Osservanza. Milan, 1957: 38-40, pl. 42.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 38, repro.

1963

  • [Pini, Umberto.] “Collezioni private a Milano e in Italia. Un altarolo del Sassetta.” Acropoli 3 (1963): 56.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 120.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 140-141, fig. 383.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 108, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:387.

1969

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. Marias Demut und Verherrlichung in der sienesischen Malerei: 1300-1450. The Hague, 1969: 124.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 183, 645.

  • Bolaffi, Alberto, and Umberto Allemandi, eds. Dizionario Enciclopedico Bolaffi dei pittori e degli Incisori italiani: dall’XI al XX secolo. 11 vols. Turin, 1972-1976: 10(1975):175.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 318, repro.

1977

  • Torriti, Piero. La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. I Dipinti dal XII al XV secolo. Genoa, 1977: 246.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:414-415; 2:pl. 295, 230B.

1982

  • Il Gotico a Siena: Miniature, pitture, oreficerie, oggetti d’arte. Exh. cat. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, 1982: 384.

1984

  • Zeri, Federico, Mauro Natale, and Alessandra Mottola Molfino, eds. Dipinti toscani e oggetti d’arte dalla collezione Vittorio Cini. Milan, 1984: 34.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 367, repro.

1986

  • Alessi, Cecilia. "Sassetta/Stefano di Giovanni di Consolo." In Federico Zeri, ed. La pittura in Italia. Il Quattrocento. 2 vols. Milan, 1986: 2:752.

1988

  • Christiansen, Keith, Laurence B. Kanter, and Carl Brandon Strehlke, eds. Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420-1500. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988: 88.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 155, color repro.

1992

  • Maetzke, Annamaria, ed. Il Museo Diocesano di Cortona. Florence, 1992: 61.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 397.

2001

  • Appuntamento a Torino: Capolavori a convegno. Exh. cat. Antichi Maestri Pittori, Turin, 2001: unpaginated, repro.

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: 628-631, color repro.

2016

  • Bacchi, Andrea, and Andrea De Marchi, eds. La Galleria di Palazzo Cini. Dipinti, sculture, oggetti d'arte. Venice, 2016: 109.

Wikidata ID

Q20173561

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