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Provenance

Possibly the Medici family, Florence, by 1492.[1] (Stefano Bardini [1836-1922], Florence). (Professor Luigi Grassi [1858-1937], Florence); purchased January 1923 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York).[2] Henry Goldman [1857-1937], New York, by 1924.[3] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold March 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] See Eugene Müntz, Les Collections des Médicis au XVe siècle, Paris, 1888: 64; among the belongings in Lorenzo de' Medici's chamber is "una tavoletta dipintovi Nostro Signore morto chon molti santi che lo portano al sepolcro, di mano di fra Giovanni" ("a little panel with painted on it Our dead Lord with many saints who are carrying him to the sepulchre, from the hand of Fra Giovanni"). Although the description is by no means precise, the relative rarity of the subject strongly suggests identification with NGA 1939.1.260.

[2] The date of passage of the work to Stefano Bardini is not known (see Fiorenza Scalia and Cristina De Benedictis, Il Museo Bardini à Florence, Milan, 1984: 125). The provenance from the Bardini and Grassi collections is indicated by Frida Schottmüller, Fra Angelico da Fiesole. Des Meisters Gemälde, Berlin and Leipzig, 1924: no. 180, 266. Duveen Brothers Records list the painting as "ex Bardini" and itemize a commission paid to "Tolentino" (X Book, Reel 422, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles).

[3] The panel was shipped to New York in the spring of 1923, and exhibited there in 1924 as part of the Goldman collection. A letter from Bernard Berenson to Henry Goldman, dated 27 February 1924 (copy in NGA curatorial files), in which the scholar congratulates the collector on the acquisition of "that beautiful Fra Angelico," would indicate the panel was a recent addition. It was likely purchased from Duveen Brothers.

[4] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of twenty-four paintings, including NGA 1939.1.260, is dated 9 March 1937; provenance is given as "Henry Goldman Collection" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2163.

Exhibition History
1924
Loan Exhibition of Important Early Italian Paintings in the Possession of Notable American Collectors, Duveen Brothers, New York, 1924, no. 23, as The Deposition by Fra Angelico (no. 4 in illustrated 1926 version of catalogue).
2018
Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 2018.
Bibliography
1941
Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 40, repro.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 6, no. 371.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 247, repro. 56, as by Fra Angelico.
1944
Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 29, repro.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 31, repro.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 51, repro., as by Fra Angelico.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 8.
1966
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 97-98, fig. 257.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 2, repro.
1973
Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 79.
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. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:425-427; 2:pl. 305, as Attributed to Jacopo del Sellaio.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 86, no. 42, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 20, 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: 31-35, color repro.
2014
Flanigan, Theresa. "Art, Memory and the Cultivation of Virtue: The Ethical Function of Images in Antonius's Opera a ben vivere." Gesta 53, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 191-192, fig. 6.
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