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Against a gold background, a blond woman is shown from the lap up, facing us as she holds and looks down at a plump baby sitting on a gold and white pillow on her lap in this vertical painting. Both people have pale, peachy skin, and faint halos encircle their heads. The child sits with his body angled to our right, toward his mother, but he turns to look off to our left with pale green eyes. He holds his right hand, on our left, up with his thumb and first two fingers raised. He has short, light brown hair, rounded cheeks, a delicate nose and lips, and chubby legs. He wears a light blue smock edged in gold, with gold filigree at the collar. The garment is belted with a twist of fabric patterned in bands of red, black, and gold. Under the smock he wears a half-sleeved, transparent undershirt. The woman steadies the baby with her long, delicate hands. She wears a sky-blue robe edged with gold, Arabic-like script. The lining, in a black and brown floral pattern, is visible where the edges of her robe turn back over her wrists and around her neck. Belted across the chest in a twist of blue and gold fabric, her dusky-pink dress is lined at the neck with a gold band with red and blue gems, with a brooch of pearls and rock crystal at the center. Her headdress is a sheer, white cloth bordered with a gold stripe, rolled atop her head and falling to her shoulders, where it is tucked into her robe. Some areas of the gold background have worn away to show the red layer beneath.

Domenico Ghirlandaio

Madonna and Child, c. 1470/1475

Not on View

Medium

tempera on panel transferred to hardboard

Dimensions

painted surface: 70.8 x 48.9 cm (27 7/8 x 19 1/4 in.)
overall size: 73 x 50.2 cm (28 3/4 x 19 3/4 in.)

framed: 115.6 x 89.2 x 7.6 cm (45 1/2 x 35 1/8 x 3 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.49

Artists / Makers

Domenico Ghirlandaio (artist) Florentine, 1449 - 1494

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Mrs. E.L. Scott, possibly London; (sale, Sotheby's, London, 22 April 1953, no. 32, as by Verrocchio); purchased by (Hazlitt Gallery, London); (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold June 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] On 7 June 1954 the Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi for sixteen paintings, including the NGA painting which was listed as by Verrocchio. In a draft of one of the documents prepared for the Count's signature in connection with the offer this painting is described as "Madonna and Child by Verrocchio, recently purchased by me in London." The Count accepted the offer on 30 June 1954; the final payment for the purchase was ultimately made in early 1957, after the Count's death in 1955. (See copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files and The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1340).

Associated Names

Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox Ltd.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Scott, E.L., Mrs.
Sotheby's, London

Exhibition History

2010: Ghirlandaio y el Renacimiento en Florencia, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2010, no. 47.

2019: Verrocchio: Master of Leonardo. Florence, Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, 2019-2020, no.. 5.5, repro.

2019: Verrocchio. Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence. National Gallery of Art, 2019-2020, no. 29, repro.

Bibliography

1956: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 88, no. 32, repro.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 66, 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: 41-43, repro.

1962: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 16, color repro.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 300, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 57.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:44, color repro.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 124-125, fig. 344.

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

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: 1:205; 2:pl. 141.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 104, no. 73, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 174, repro.

1988: Wheeler, Marion, ed. His Face--Images of Christ in Art: Selections from the King James Version of the Bible. New York, 1988: no. 14, repro.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2003: 300-303, color repro.