The Holy Family

probably c. 1500

Giorgione

Painter, Venetian, 1477/1478 - 1510

An old man and a young woman holding an infant are seated together in the center of this almost square painting. All three people have pale, peachy skin. To our left, the man sits on a low, tan brick wall with his head bowed to look at the baby on the woman’s lap. A periwinkle-blue cloak is wrapped around the kelly-green robe that covers his shoulders, back, and legs. One hand grips a short staff planted on the ground. His receding white hair and beard are thin and scraggly with tufts sticking out over his ears. The woman sits next to and slightly in front of him, to our right, on a low rock, her body angled toward the man. A long, cobalt-blue cloak is draped around her shoulders and covers her knees over her rose-pink gown. Her honey-brown hair is parted in the middle and gathered at the back of her head. Her brown eyes look down at the infant, who is blond with brown eyes. A long white shawl is tucked into the neckline of her dress, drapes over her shoulders, and wraps under the baby as she cradles his body with one hand under his backside and the other behind his head. The baby lies on his back with his head turned toward the woman, and he points to her with one outstretched arm. The dirt ground is scattered with pebbles that make a loose ring around the trio, with moss-green growth to either side. A brown brick wall fills the upper half of the composition behind the people and extends off the top edge. A rounded arch pierces the back wall to our right of the woman. On the other side of the opening, trees with copper-brown leaves grow up along the left and the landscape beyond opens onto rocky hills with a white, square tower. In the deep distance, the silhouette of a town is painted in robin’s egg-blue against a pale peach horizon line. Thin, white clouds skim across the blue sky above.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 10

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel transferred to hardboard

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 37.3 x 45.6 cm (14 11/16 x 17 15/16 in.)
    framed: 55.9 x 64.8 x 7.6 cm (22 x 25 1/2 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.2.8

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Charles I, King of England [1600-1649]. Possibly James II, King of England [1633-1701]. Possibly Allart van Everdingen [d. 1675], Haarlem and Amsterdam; possibly (Everdingen sale, Amsterdam, 19 April 1709, no. 2). anonymous collection, France. (dealer, Brighton, England); sold 1887 to Henry Willett; by exchange 1894 to Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex; sold 1927 with the Benson collection to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold 1949 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:211-213. See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2192.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1912

  • Early Venetian Pictures and Other Works of Art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1912, no. 17 (no. 57, pl. XLIII in illustrated catalogue).

1927

  • Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 33.

1938

  • Masterpieces of Art, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 144, repro.

1942

  • Giorgione and His Circle, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1942, no. 2, repro.

1979

  • Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 16, repro.

1993

  • Le Siècle de Titien: L'âge d'or de la peinture à Venise, Galeries du Grand Palais, Paris, 1993, no. 15, 295-297, repro. 29, as La Sainte Famille.

2004

  • Giorgione: Myth and Enigma, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, 2004, no. 2, repro.

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. 83.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. Milan and New York, 1933: 2:pl.404, as by Giovanni Bellini.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 82-85, repro., as by Venetian school, c. 1500 (possibly Giorgone).

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 98, no. 39, repro., as by Venetian School (Possibly Giorgione).

1956

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 26, repro.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 32.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 155, repro.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 94, color repro. 87.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 24, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 307, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 58.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:158, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 50, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 150-151, fig. 366.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 152, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:211-213; 2:pl. 145.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 199, no. 236, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 176, repro.

1988

  • Sebag-Montefiore, Charles. "Three Lost Collections of London." National Art Collections Fund Magazine 38 (Christmas 1988): 54.

1993

  • Freedberg, S. J. "The Attribution of the Allendale Nativity." Studies in the History of Art 45 (1993): 69, repro. no. 33.

1994

  • Freedberg, Sydney J. “The Benson Holy Family: A Reconsideration.” In Pierre Rosenberg, Cécile Scailliérez, and Dominique Thiébaut, eds. Hommage à Michel Laclotte. Études sur la peinture du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance. Milan and Pars, 1994: 324-340, figs. 330, 334, 337, 346, 363, as by Sebastiano del Piombo.

1995

  • Bettagno, Alessandro, and Giorgio Fossaluzza. “Interpretazioni del paesaggio nella pittura veneta.” In Alessandro Bettagno, ed. Natura e arte nel paesaggio veneto. Dalle interpretazioni pittoriche alle immagine fotografiche. Turin, 1995: 163.

1997

  • Anderson, Jaynie. Giorgione: The Painter of "Poetic Brevity". New York, 1997: 294, repro.

2001

  • Wilson, Carolyn C. St. Joseph in Italian Renaissance Society and Art: New Directions and Interpretations. Philadelphia, 2001: 78, 195 n. 11, 239 n. 57, pl. 64.

2004

  • Danziger, Elon. "The Cook Collection: Its Founder and Its Inheritors." The Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1216 (July 2004): 453.

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 82, no. 58, color repro.

  • Santucci, Paola. Su Andrea Mantegna. Naples, 2004: 195.

2008

  • Bacchi, Andrea and Luciana Giacomelli, eds Rinascimento e passione per l'antico: Andrea Riccio e il suo tempo. Exh. cat. Castello di Buonconsiglio. Trento, 2008: 360.

2024

  • Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria. Sebastiano del Piombo. Da Giorgione a Raffaello e Michelangelo. Un pittore musico tra Venezia e Roma (1501-1511). Quinto di Treviso, 2024: 134, 146-147, 149, 174, 253, 325, 391-393, 411, fig. 11, as Giorgione (and Sebastiano?).

Wikidata ID

Q3944458

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