Saint Anthony Distributing His Wealth to the Poor

c. 1430/1435

Master of the Osservanza

Painter, Sienese, active late 1420s - early 1440s

Sano di Pietro

Painter, Sienese, 1405 - 1481

Enclosed within the pale, peach-colored walls of a courtyard, two women with two children and three men line up before a man with a gold halo standing in the lower right corner in this vertical painting. All the people have pale or olive-toned skin except for one man, to our left, who has a light brown complexion. The cleanshaven man to our right, Saint Anthony, has light skin, short blond hair, and he wears a gold-trimmed, burgundy-red cloak and pale green hose. His disk-like gold halo has a band of rings near its perimeter. In his left hand, closer to us, he holds a white cloth purse by its strings, as he offers coins with his right right hand. The boy receiving the coins in a shallow bowl has blond hair and is dressed in a spring-green cloak, with yellow hose and black shoes. He stands next to a woman wearing a patched, caramel-brown dress and a cream-white veil over her head, neck, and shoulders. She holds a blond infant wearing sky blue. Another woman, stooped with age, hair also veiled, stands with them. This group of four all have pale skin. Behind this group and to our left is a man with an olive complexion and a black beard and hair. He wears a fraying black robe. His chemise pokes through a hole in his right sleeve and he leans forward on bare feet. He holds an ivory-white object, perhaps a cloth or bread, by his mouth with the hand farther from us. Behind him a taller, older man, with white hair and beard walks to our left with his eyes closed, steadied by a staff and led by a small black and white dog on a rope. He wears a green cap, topped with black fur, and a pale blue cape over a brown robe. A bearded man with light brown skin enters the scene from our left, walking staff in hand. He wears a turban-like cap, a brown robe, and black shoes. Through an open, arched doorway to our right, beyond Saint Anthony, a second image of the saint is shown descending a staircase with purse in hand. Also with a gold halo, he approaches another arched opening with a stout wooden door, through which piles of gold coins are heaped. The arcade of the second level of the courtyard fills the top quarter of the painting and extends off the top edge. A shield-shaped coat of arms is shown over the doorway closest to us to our right, with three stars across a gray band against a golden yellow background.

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

    painted surface: 46.4 x 33.6 cm (18 1/4 x 13 1/4 in.)
    overall size: 47.3 x 34.8 cm (18 5/8 x 13 11/16 in.)
    framed: 61.6 x 125.4 x 7.6 cm (24 1/4 x 49 3/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.20

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Probably Aloisi-Vicoli-Caccialupi family, San Severino Marche; by inheritance to Count Augusto Caccialupi Olivieri [1834-1897], Macerata, by 1870;[1] purchased by Robert Jenkins Nevin [1839-1906], Rome.[2] Dan Fellows Platt [1873-1938], Englewood, New Jersey, in 1906;[3] sold November 1943 by the trustees of the Platt estate to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] See Filippo Raffaelli, Catalogo di quadric divarie scuole pittoriche raccolti dal Sig. Conte Augusto Caccialupi in Macerata, Macerata, 1870: 6, nos. V, VI. Count Augusto Caccialupi's family inherited, apart from the Caccialupi estate, also those of the Aloisi and Vicoli families of San Severino. The Caccialupis were also from this city; Count Augusto, however, lived in Macerata; see Vittorio Spreti, Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, Milan, 1929: 2:226-229, and Aldo Adversi, Dante Cecchi, and Libero Paci, Storia di Macerata, 5 vols., Macerata, 1971-1977: 2(1972):59.
[2] In the preface to the Catalogo della vendita della collezione del fu reverendo Dottor Roberto I. Nevin..., sale cat. Galleria Sangiorgi, Rome, 22-27 April 1907: 8, F. Mason Perkins mentions that a group of paintings was acquired by Nevin from the Caccialupi collection. According to Giusepe Vitalini Sacconi (Pittura marchigiana. La scuola camerinese, Trieste, 1968: 238 n. 285), Nevin bought all of what at that remained of the collection, a considerable part of which was already sold before 1870. The provenance of NGA 1952.5.20 and NGA 1952.5.21 from the Nevin collection is first stated by Lionello Venturi, Pitture italiane in America, Milan, 1931: no. CXXV. They must have been sold before Nevin died, as they are not in the catalogue of his 1907 estate sale.
[3] There seen already by F. Mason Perkins, "Quattro tavole inedite del Sassetta," Rassegna d'Arte Senese 7 (1907): 45-46. See Dan Fellows Platt Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University, NJ; box 2, folder 23, call number C0860.
[4] The bill of sale for six paintings from Ethel Bliss Platt, as trustee of the estate of Dan Fellows Platt, to the Kress Foundation is dated 30 November 1943. A letter of the same date from the Foundation to Mrs. Platt confirms that the purchase is "made with the understanding that [the paintings] are to be deeded to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C." (Copies of both documents are in NGA curatorial files.) See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1795.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1939

  • Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 347, repro., as St. Anthony distributes his Money to the Poor by Sassetta.

1940

  • Golden Gate International Exposition, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1940, no. 119, repro., as St. Anthony Distributes His Money to the Poor by Sassetta.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 817, as by Sassetta.

1988

  • Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988-1989, no. 10b, repro., as Saint Anthony Distributing His Wealth by the Master of the Osservanza.

2010

  • Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le Arti a Siena nel Primo Rinascimento, Complesso Museale Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, 2010, no. C.34b, repro.

Bibliography

1907

  • Perkins, F. Mason. "Quattro tavole inedite del Sassetta," Rassegna d'Arte Senese 7 (1907): 45-46.

1931

  • Waterhouse, Ellis K. "Sassetta and the Legend of St. Anthony Abbot." The Burlington Magazine 59 (September 1931): 108-113, plate I-B.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 1:138, repro.

1939

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. Sassetta. London, 1939: 69-77, 82-86, 91-93, n. 35-50, repro. pl. xiii.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 38, repro., as by Sassetta.

1946

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 26, repro., as by Sassetta

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 29-30, repro. 27, as by Sassetta.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 24, color repro., as by Sassetta.

1956

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. "Rethinking Sassetta." _The Burlington Magazine_98 (October 1956): 366, 368, fig. 29 (in reverse), 369

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 39, repro., as by Sassetta.

1965

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

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 141, fig. 378.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 107, repro., as by Sassetta and Assistant.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 22-23, color repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:254.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 318, repro., as by Sassetta and Assistant.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:319-323; 2:pl. 231, as Master of the Osservanza Triptych.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 80, no. 27, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 368, repro.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 402.

1997

  • Hindman, Sandra, et. al. The Robert Lehman Collection IV Illuminations. New York and Princeton, 1997:139, 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: 481-495, color repro., as by Master of the Osservanza (Sano di Pietro).

2005

  • Costanzi, Costanza, ed. Le Marche disperse: repertorio di opere d’arte dalle Marche al mondo. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2005: 196, cat. 265a.

2012

  • Bellosi, Luciano. "Considerazioni introduttive al problema dell'identificazione tra il "Maestro dell'Osservanza" e Sano di Pietro." In Gabriele Fattorini et. al., eds. Sano di Pietro: Qualità, devozione e pratica nella pittura senese del Quattrocento. Giornate di studio nel sesto centenario della nascita. Siena 5 dicembre 2005 – Asciano 6 dicembre 2005. Milan, 2012: 44.

  • De Marchi, Andrea. "Sano di Pietro prima della Pala dei Gesuati e il "Maestro dell'Osservanza": aporie di una doppia identità." In Gabriele Fattorini et. al., eds. Sano di Pietro: Qualità, devozione e pratica nella pittura senese del Quattrocento. Giornate di studio nel sesto centenario della nascita. Siena 5 dicembre 2005 – Asciano 6 dicembre 2005. Milan, 2012: 62-65, figs. 37-38.

Wikidata ID

Q20173510

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