The Gathering of Manna

1540/1555

Bachiacca

Artist, Florentine, 1494 - 1557

About fifty pale-skinned men, women, and children along with a giraffe, ox, and other animals gather in groups across a hilly landscape in this vertical painting. The people wear robes or dresses in shades of carnation pink, honey orange, sky blue, ruby red, leaf green, or golden brown. The people’s skin is painted pearl white or, in a few instances, tinged with gray. A crowd of eight men and women gather in the lower left quadrant behind a man who points to the right with a stick. Others sit on the ground or on rocks, stand at barrel-sized urns, or bend to the ground. A porcupine, white rabbit, black bear, cow, cheetah-like animals, and several others are spaced along the foreground, close to us. The gathering continues into the distance to the right, where a path leads to a cluster of buildings along a jagged coastline. Craggy mountains rising from water line are shaded aquamarine blue under a cloudy sky. A few tall, spindly trees grow up the center of the composition, and a tall, rocky outcropping takes up most of the upper left quadrant.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 111.8 x 95.3 cm (44 x 37 1/2 in.)
    framed: 141 x 123.2 x 8.3 cm (55 1/2 x 48 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.4

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Stefano Bardini [1836-1922], Florence, by 1899; (Bardini sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 5 June 1899, no. 494, bought in); (Bardini sale, American Art Association, New York, 25 April 1918, no. 468);[1] purchased by H.L. Kaufman; (Pinakos, Inc. [Rudolf Heinemann], New York); on joint account 1942 with (Frederick Mont), (Victor D. Spark, New York) and (M. Knoedler & Co, London, New York and Paris, France);[2] sold 6 August 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] This information comes from the M. Knoedler & Co. précis in NGA curatorial files.
[2] Victor D. Spark papers, Archives of American Art, Box 3 (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Stockbook no. 8, p. 218 (copy in NGA curatorial files).
[3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2183.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1944

  • Roosevelt House, Hunter College, New York, 1944.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 791.

Bibliography

1896

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance: with an index to their works. New York, 1896: 101.

1907

  • Salvini, Roberto. “Ubertini, Francesco.” In Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 33 (1939):522.

1909

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, 3rd ed. London, 1909: 102.

1923

  • Schubring, Paul. Cassoni. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1923: 1:406, no. 826.

1925

  • Tinti, Mario. Il Bachiacca. Florence, [1925?]: pl. 18.

1926

  • McComb, Arthur. “Francesco Ubertini (Bacchiacca).” The Art Bulletin 3 (1926): 154.

1938

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. 3 vols. Chicago, 1938: 1:297-298.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 119, repro.

1946

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 46, repro.

  • Douglas, Robert Langton. "Recent Additions to the Kress Collection." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 88 (1946): 82.

1947

  • Friedmann, Herbert. “Bacchiacca’s Gathering of Manna in the National Gallery.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 32 (1947): 151-158.

1956

  • Mühlberger, Richard. The Bible in Art: The Old Testament. London, 1956: 219, pl. 107.

1958

  • Merritt, Howard S. “Bachiacca Studies: The Uses of Imitation.” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1958: 114.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 104, 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: 112, repro. pl. 103, color repro. pl. 92.

  • Merritt, Howard S., ed. Bacchiacca and his Friends: Florentine Paintings and Drawings of the Sixteenth Century. Exh. cat. Baltimore Museum of Art, 1961: 22, 30-33, fig. 19.

1963

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:21. 2:pl.1249

1965

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

1966

  • Nikolenko, Lada. Francesco Ubertini Called Il Bacchiacca. Locust Valley, NY, 1966: 22, 59, fig. 71.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 3, repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 13, 646.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 8-9, fig. 13-14.

1975

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

1978

  • Colbert, Charles D. “Bacchiacca in the Context of Florentine Art.” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1978: 82.

  • Brigstocke, Hugh. Italian and Spanish Paintings in the National Gallery of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1978: 9, 10.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:21-22; 2:pl. 13.

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 47, pl. 29.

1981

  • Rosenthal, Gertude, ed. Italian Paintings XIV-XVIIIth Cenuries from the Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore, 1981: 94.

1983

  • Mészáros, László. Italien sieht Dührer: zur Wirkung der deutschen Druckgraphick auf die Italienische Kunst des 16. Jahrhunderts. Erlangen, 1983: 271, no. 248.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 172, no. 192, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 34, repro.

1993

  • Cox-Rearick, Janet. Bronzino’s Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993: 219-221.

  • Brigstocke, Hugh. Italian and Spanish Paintings in the National Gallery of Scotland. 3rd ed. Edinburgh, 1993: 23-24, fig. 1.

1995

  • Cattaneo Adorno, Carlotta, et al. Il Palazzo Durazzo Pallavicini. Genoa, 1995: 289.

2000

  • Fahy, Everett. Dipinti, disegni, miniature, stampe: L'Archivio storico fotografico di Stefano Bardini. Florence, 2000: 44, no. 356.

2002

  • La France, Robert G. “Francesco d’Ubertino Verdi, il Bachiacca, 1494-1557: ‘Diligente Dipintore.’” Ph.D. diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2002: cat. 56.

2003

  • La France, Robert G. “Bachiacca’s Formula for Success.” In Marcello Fantoni, Louis Chevalier Matthew, and Sarah F. Matthews Grieco, eds. The Art Market in Italy, 15th – 17th Cenrueies / Il mercato dell’arte in Italia secc. XV-XVII. Modena, 2003: 237-238.

2007

  • Fara, Giovanni Maria. Inventario generale delle stampe del Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. I. Albrecht Dürer. Originali, copie, derivazioni. Florence, 2007: 233, 237, 241.

2008

  • La France, Robert G. Bachiacca: Artist of the Medici Court. Florence, 2008: 4-6, 76, 91-92, 101, 104, 106, 112, 202, 208, 215, 216-218, 225, 226, 244, 252, 259, 262, 290, 291, 296, 298, cat. 62, pl. XLIX, figs. 21, 23.

2011

  • Boskovits, Miklós, ed. The Alana Collection, Newark, Delaware, USA. Vol. II: Italian Paintings and Sculptures from the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century. Florence, 2011: 27.

Wikidata ID

Q20176222

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