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Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop

The Nativity, probably c. 1445

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 4

Medium

oil and tempera (?) on panel

Dimensions

overall: 23.2 x 55.3 cm (9 1/8 x 21 3/4 in.)

framed: 27.9 x 59.7 x 5.7 cm (11 x 23 1/2 x 2 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.279

Artists / Makers

Fra Filippo Lippi (painter) Florentine, c. 1406 - 1469

Italian 15th Century (artist)

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Comtesse De Lezze, Nice. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold October 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] The bill of sale from Contini Bonacossi to the Kress Foundation, dated 20 October 1937, for this and several other paintings, gives the provenance as "Formerly in the Collection of Countess De Lezze, Nizza" (copy in NGA curatorial files). It has not been possible to find further information about this collection. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2248.

Associated Names

Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Lezze, Comtesse de

Bibliography

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 107, no. 390, as by Fra Filippo Lippi.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 247, repro. 132, as by Fra Filippo Lippi.

1949: Pittaluga, Mary. Fra Filippo Lippi. Florence, 1949: 205, 216.

1950: University of Oxford: Catalogue of Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum. Oxford, 1950: 57-58.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 55, repro., as by Fra Filippo Lippi.

1960: Brooke, Humphrey, ed. Italian Art and Britain. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1960: 107.

1963: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:114.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 76, as by Fra Filippo Lippi and Assistant.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 108, fig. 291.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 67, repro., as by Fra Filippo Lippi and Assistant.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 107, 646.

1973: Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 79.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 385.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 196, repro., as by Fra Filippo Lippi and Assistant.

1975: Marchini, Giuseppe. Filippo Lippi. Milan, 1975: 15, 168, 207, cat. 33, fig. 60.

1977: Lloyd, Christopher. A Catalogue of the Earlier Italian Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum. Oxford, 1977: 102.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:265-266; 2:pl. 181, as Follower of Fra Filippo Lippi.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 230, repro.

1986: Tozzini Cellai, Valeria. L’arte del Rinascimento: Filippo Lippi. Prato, 1986: 170, no. 49.

1993: Ruda, Jeffrey. Fra Filippo Lippi: Life and Work with a Complete Catalogue. London, 1993: 62, 63, 71-73, 376, 377, 378-379, 410, pls. 36, 37, 211.

1995: Boskovits, Miklós. “Attorno al Tondo Cook: Precisazioni sul Beato Angelico su Filippo Lippi e altri.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorichen Institutes in Florenz 39, Bd., H. 1 (1995): 66.

1995: Lachi, Chiara. Il Maestro della Natività di Castello. Florence, 1995: 21, 93, figs. 8, 9, as by Fra Filippo Lippi and the Master of the Castello Nativity.

1995: Lachi, Chiara. “Il problema della bottega di Filippo Lippi: Nuove scoperte.” In Maria Pia Mannini, ed. La Natività di Filippo Lippi: restauro saggi ricerche. Prato, 1995: 36, 37, fig. 12, as by Fra Filippo Lippi and Collaborators (Master of the Castello Nativity).

1996: Padoa Rizzo, Anna. “Master of the Castello Nativity.” In Jane Turner, ed. The Dictionary of Art. 34 vols. London, 1996: 20:642, as by Fra Filippo Lippi and the Master of the Castello Nativity.

1997: Mannini, Maria Pia, and Marco Fagioli. Filippo Lippi: Catalogo completo. Florence, 1997: 136-137, cat. 63.

1999: Holmes, Megan. Fra Filippo Lippi, The Carmelite Painter. New Haven and London, 1999: 257 n. 11.

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: 406-409, color repro., as by Fra Filippo Lippi.

2005: Christiansen, Keith, ed. From Filippo Lippi to Piero della Francesca: Fra Carnevale and the Making of a Renaissance Master. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005: 154.

2017: Schumacher, Andreas, ed. Florentiner Malerei. Alte Pinakothek: Die Gemälde des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 2017: 278.

2018: Schumacher, Andreas, ed. Florence and its Painters: From Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci. Exh. cat. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 2018: 216-217.