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Home>Collection>Leone Battista Alberti, 1404-1472, Architect and Writer on Art and Science [obverse]

Inscription

around circumference: LEO BAPTISTA ALBERTVS

Provenance

Gustave Dreyfus [1837-1914], Paris; his heirs; purchased with the entire Dreyfus collection 9 July 1930 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold 31 January 1944 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1957 to NGA.

[1] The Duveen Brothers Records document the firm’s sixteen year pursuit and eventual acquisition of the Dreyfus collection, which included paintings, sculptures, small bronzes, medals, and plaquettes. Bequeathed as part of his estate to Dreyfus’ widow and five children (a son and four daughters), who had differing opinions about its disposition, the collection was not sold until after his widow’s death in April 1929. Duveen did not wish to separate Dreyfus’ collection of small bronzes, medals, and plaquettes, and it was sold intact to the Kress Foundation for a price that was met by installment payments every three months. (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 301, box 446, folders 3 and 4; reel 302, box 447, folders 1-6; reel 303, box 448, folders 1 and 2; reel 330, box 475, folder 4.) See also George Francis Hill’s discussion "A Note on Pedigrees" in his catalogue, The Gustave Dreyfus Collection: Renaissance Medals, Oxford, 1931: xii, which was commissioned by Duveen Brothers.

Exhibition History

1953
Renaissance Portraits, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1953, no cat.
1994
The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: The Representation of Architecture. Palazzo Grassi, Venice; NGA, Wash.; Musée des Monuments Français, Paris; Altes Museum, Berlin, 1994-1996, no. 42 (Venice, DC), no. 23 (Berlin); (not shown in Paris).
2000
The Power of Appearances: Renaissance and Reformation Portrait Prints, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, 2000, no cat.

Bibliography

1967
Hill, George Francis, and Graham Pollard. Renaissance Medals from the Samuel H. Kress Collection at the National Gallery of Art. London, 1967: no. 56.
1983
Wilson, Carolyn C. Renaissance Small Bronze Sculpture and Associated Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1983: 22, no. 1.
1987
Pasini, Pier Giorgio. "Matteo de'Pasti: Problems of Style and Chronology." Studies in the History of Art 21 (1987): 150-151, repro.
1993
Adams, Laurie Schneider. Art and Psychoanalysis. New York, 1993: 147-149, fig. 55.
1997
Glinsman, Lisha Deming. "Renaissance Portrait Medals by Matteo de'Pasti." Studies in the History of Art 57 (1997): 100, fig. 6.
2001
Schneider Adams, Laurie. Italian Renaissance Art. Boulder, 2001: 145-46, fig. 7.4.
2007
Pollard, John Graham. Renaissance Medals. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. 2 vols. Washington, 2007: 1:no. 40, repro.
2009
Pasini, Pier Giorgio. Il tesoro di Sigismondo e le medaglie di Matteo de' Pasti. Bologna, 2009: repro. 97.
2016
Madersbach, Lukas. "'fatto alla spera'? Das Porträt des Leon Battista Alberti aus den Orti Oricellari." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 58, no. 3 (2016, published February 2017): 319-347, esp. 327-329, 329 fig. 10, 334, 335 fig. 14c (detail).
2020
Tsitrin, Lev. "The Perfect Pose." The MCA Advisory 23, no. 3 (Fall 2020): 19, repro, 21, 22.

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