Madonna and Child

c. 1480/1485

Giovanni Bellini

Artist, Venetian, c. 1430/1435 - 1516

Shown from the waist up, a young woman holds a baby up against her chest in this vertical painting. They both face us and have pale skin. The woman holds the baby against the right side of her chest, to our left, and she tips her slender, oval face toward him. She looks out at us with hazel eyes under thin, arched brows. She has a long nose, smooth cheeks, and a pale pink, bow mouth. The neckline and the cuffs of her garnet-red gown peek out from beneath a dark, spruce-blue, gold-edged mantle that covers her head and wraps around her body. One forearm rests along a surface marbled in red, brown, and tan. With her other hand, she supports the chest of the baby, who wears a long, white robe. The sleeves and hemline are pushed up to reveal his pudgy arms and the leg we can see. The infant has wavy, reddish-brown hair, delicate features, and large, green eyes under faint brows. His head also tilts to our left, and he gazes off in that direction. His exposed left leg, on our right, dangles over the woman’s arm, his toe nearly brushing the tabletop. His other leg is tucked within the folds of her robe. The long fingers of her free hand curl around the child’s hidden leg. The pair are warmly lit from the upper left and set against a dark, earth-brown background.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 35

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 52.3 x 41.5 cm (20 9/16 x 16 5/16 in.)
    overall: 53.7 x 42.5 cm (21 1/8 x 16 3/4 in.)
    framed: 86.8 x 70.6 x 7.9 cm (34 3/16 x 27 13/16 x 3 1/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.352

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Niccolò d'Attimis, Conte Maniago, Spilimbergo (near Udine in Friuli); purchased 1916 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[1] on approval to Carl W. Hamilton [1886-1967], New York, by 1920, and returned 1921;[2] sold 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] The name "Olivotti" is recorded next to the date and amount of the purchase, possibly indicating an agent for the transaction (X Book, Reel 422, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles).
[2] According to Edward Fowles (Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 127-129), a large collection of Italian paintings was offered on approval to Hamilton by 1920, but he did not purchase them and returned them to Duveen the following year.
[3] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of twenty-four paintings, including NGA 1939.1.352, is dated 9 March 1937; the provenance is given as "Maniago Collection" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1332.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1924

  • Loan Exhibition of Important Early Italian Paintings in the Possession of Notable American Collectors, Duveen Brothers, New York, 1924, no. 47 (no. 44 in illustrated 1926 version of catalogue).

1932

  • Exhibition of Italian Renaissance Art, Wadsworth Atheneum and Morgan Memorial, Hartford, 1932, no. 8.

2004

  • Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004, no. 306, repro., as Icon of the Virgin and Child.

Bibliography

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 80, repro.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 21, no. 445.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 248, repro. 70.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 90, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 12.

1968

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 39, fig. 94.

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 4, repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 23, 646.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 20, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:56-57; 2:pl. 32.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 40, 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: 56-59, color repro.

2017

  • Serres, Karen. "Duveen's Italian framemaker, Ferruccio Vannoni." The Burlington Magazine 159, no. 1370 (May 2017): 373 n. 40.

2019

  • Lucco, Mauro, Peter Humfrey, and Giovanni C.F. Villa. Giovanni Bellini: Catalogo ragionato. Treviso, 2019: 426, cat. 76.

Wikidata ID

Q20174287

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