Scenes from a Legend

probably c. 1515/1520

Giovanni Larciani (Master of the Kress Landscapes)

Painter, Florentine, 1484 - 1527

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 19

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 27.9 x 41.9 cm (11 x 16 1/2 in.)
    framed (upper left canvas, framed with 1939.1.344.a and .c): 86.52 x 114.3 x 9.21 cm (34 1/16 x 45 x 3 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.344.b

Associated Artworks

A person walks across a rocky path with a fortified, wall-enclosed town in the distance in this horizontal painting. The person wears a dark green robe and pink hood or cap, carries a yellow sack slung over one shoulder, and uses a walking stick. Boulders surge to either side of the path, and leafy green trees grow up the right side of the composition. Several swans float on a lake just beyond the trees. Painted in shades of gray, a person rides a camel just beyond a boulder to the left. Other forms painted with thin strokes of red or black could be people walking through the landscape in the distance. A city gate, the walls, and some of the buildings have crenelations. Trees nestle between hills that roll back to hazy, sage-green mountains along the horizon, which almost reaches the top edge of the painting. The sky above is muted blue.

Scenes from a Legend

Giovanni Larciani (Master of the Kress Landscapes)

1515

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Niccolini, Florence. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence and Rome); sold 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1924.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1996

  • L'officina della maniera. Varietà e fierezza nell'arte fiorentina del Cinquecento fra le due repubbliche 1494-1530, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, 1996-1997, no. 116, repro.

Bibliography

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 91, no. 437, as by Francesco Granacci.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 248, repro. 122, as by Francesco Granacci.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 105, repro., as by Francesco Granacci.

1962

  • Zeri, Federico. “Eccentrici fiorentini – parte I.” Bollettino d’arte 4 (1962): 218-220, fig. 1.

1963

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:100, as Attributed to Francesco Granacci.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 62, as by Francesco Granacci.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 54, repro., as by Francesco Granacci.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 124-125, fig. 300-302.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 392.

1974

  • Holst, Christian von. Francesco Granacci. Munich, 1974: 206-207, cat. 211.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 222, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:315; 2:pl. 226B.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 254, repro.

1991

  • Natale, Mauro, ed. Pittura italiana dal '300 al '500. Milan, 1991: 158.

1998

  • Waldman, Louis Alexander. "The 'Master of the Kress Landscapes' unmasked: Giovanni Larciani and the Fucecchio altar-piece." The Burlington Magazine 140 no. 1144 (July 1988):457, 465, fig. 1.

2001

  • Franklin, David. Painting in Renaissance Florence 1500-1550. New Haven and London, 2001: 176.

  • Waldman, Louis A. “The Rank and File of Renaissance Painting: Giovanni Larciani and the ‘Florentine Eccentrics’.” In Annemarie Sawkins, ed. Italian Renaissance Masters. Exh. cat. Milwaukee, 2001: 25, 34, fig. 18.

2013

  • Aquino, Lucia. "Vita e opere di Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani, un tempo Maestro dei Paesaggi Kress." In Lucia Aquino and Simone Giordano, eds. Francesco Granacci e Giovanni Larciani all'Oratorio di Santa Caterina all'Antella. Exh. cat. Oratorio di Santa Caterina all'Antella, Ponte a Ema (Bagno a Ripoli), 2013: 64-65, 67.

Wikidata ID

Q20175427

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