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Inscription

lower right: Jordanus / F.

Provenance

(J.A. Tooth, London); purchased 24 May 1960 by (P. & D. Colnaghi, London); (sale, Sotheby's, London, 10 May 1967, no. 147);[1] Joseph F. McCrindle [1923-2008], New York; gift 1991 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1967
Extended loan, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1967-1973.
1973
Extended loan, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1973-1987.
1987
Extended loan, Princeton University Art Museum, 1987-1991.
1991
Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, 76-77, color repro.
2009
Lágrimas de Eros [Tears of Eros], Fundación Caja Madrid, Madrid, 2009-2010, no. 82, repro.

Technical Summary

The support is a medium-weight, open plain-weave fabric. The ground is a dark brown layer of medium thickness. Using broad rapid brushstrokes, the paint was thickly applied everywhere but in the shadows, where its thin, transparent application allows the ground to show through and darken the shadows. X-radiographs reveal several artist's changes. The moon was once directly over Diana's forehead. Diana's hand was placed lower, around Endymion's neck, and her hairstyle was slightly different at the neck. The upper sections of Diana's billowing blue drapery were somewhat larger, and the upper edge of the bottom section was originally higher. Endymion looked out at the viewer rather than up at Diana. The mouth of the dog at right may have been open.

The tacking margins have been removed, but cusping is present along all four sides. The painting is in good condition aside from minor abrasion and small inpainted losses scattered throughout and concentrated just left of center. The dark appearance results from the paint having become more transparent with age, allowing the dark color of the ground to dominate. The varnish is clear. The painting, which was lined at an unknown date, has not been treated since acquisition.

Bibliography

1987
Colton, Judith. In A Taste for Angels. Neapolitan Paintings in North America 1650-1750. Exh. cat. Yale Univ. Art Gallery, New Haven; John and Mable Ringling Mus. of Art, Sarasota, Florida; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Sarasota, 1987: 138.
1996
De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 117-120, color repro. 119.
2003
Ferrari, Oreste, and Giuseppe Scavizzi. Luca Giordano. Naples, 2003: 58, no. A0113, color repro.
2011
Manning, Peter J. "Wordsworth's 'Illustrated Books and Newspapers' and Media of the City." In Peter, Larry H., ed. Romanticism and the City. New York, 2011: 233, 240 n. 22.
2012
Grasselli, Margaret M., and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., eds. The McCrindle Gift: A Distinguished Collection of Drawings and Watercolors. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2012: 10, 19, repro. 184.

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