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Shown from the hips up, a woman to our left wears a sapphire-blue robe over a petal-pink dress, and she supports a pudgy, nude infant to our right in this vertical painting. Both have marble-white skin faintly tinged with green, wavy blond hair, and shiny gold halos. Their heads tilt toward each other so the woman’s cheek brushes the top of the baby’s head. She holds his body with one hand nearly flat against his torso and the other, covered with her robe, bracing his back. The baby holds the pinky of her hand against his chest with his left hand, on our right, and wraps his other arm around her heck. The woman looks down to our right with olive-green eyes under faint brows. She has a delicate nose and her pale, pink lips are parted. Her hair is covered by a sheer white cloth that falls over the shoulders of her blue robe, which is lined with golden yellow where it turns back around her neck. Her pink dress is trimmed with a band of moss green along the curving, sweetheart neckline and around the cuffs of her sleeves, and is ornamented with pearls and red, white, and blue orbs, possibly jewels. The baby looks at or toward us, his pink lips also parted and his rounded cheeks slightly blushed. He stands on his left foot, to our right, and raises his other foot, knee bent. Stylized white and pink roses with mint-green stems and leaves grow up against a royal-blue background behind the pair.

Domenico Veneziano

Madonna and Child, c. 1445/1450

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 04

Medium

tempera on poplar panel

Dimensions

overall: 83 x 57 cm (32 11/16 x 22 7/16 in.)

framed: 124.5 x 100.3 x 9.8 cm (49 x 39 1/2 x 3 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.221

Artists / Makers

Domenico Veneziano (artist) Florentine, c. 1410 - 1461

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Richard Lovell Edgeworth [1744-1817], Edgeworthstown, co. Longford, Ireland; by inheritance to his daughter, Maria Edgeworth [1767-1849], Edgeworthstown; by inheritance to her half-brother, Charles Sneyd Edgeworth [d. 1864], Edgeworthstown; by inheritance to Maria's and Charles' half-nephew, Prof. Francis Ysidro Edgeworth [1845-1926];[1] Acquired 1929 by (Julius Böhler, Munich);[2] purchased 1930 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] sold May 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] The catalogue of the 1930 exhibition in London gives the provenance as "Professor Edgeworth, Edgeworthstown, Ireland." A more detailed list of the previous owners is given in Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America, New York, 1941: no. 42. On the Edgeworth family see The Dictionary of National Biography. The Concise Dictionary, Part 1, Oxford, 1953: 384, and Part 2, Oxford, 1961: 131. Julius Böhler sent Joseph Duveen a postcard of "Edgeworthstown House" and wrote in the postscript to the accompanying letter: "I am sorry I cannot give you more than the enclosed postcard regarding the pedigree of the Domenico Veneziano. This is the place and the people the picture comes from. I know nothing more and the picture was the only picture in the place." (Copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 299, Folder 1, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles).

[2] Böhler Inventory card no. 226-29, Getty Research Institute gives source as "Sarasota." (copy NGA curatorial file).

[3] Correspondence between Böhler and Joseph Duveen in the Duveen Brothers Records documents the purchase from the 1930 exhibition (copies in NGA curatorial files; Box 299, Folder 1, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles).

[4] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of thirteen paintings and one sculpture, including NA 1939.1.221, is dated 18 May 1936; the provenance is given as "Prof. Edgeworth Coll'n" (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/1326.

Associated Names

Böhler, Julius
Edgeworth, Charles Sneyd
Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro
Edgeworth, Maria
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.

Exhibition History

1930: Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930, no. 115 (no. 110, pl. XLI in commemorative catalogue published 1931; not in souvenir catalogue).

1935: L'art italien de Cimbaue à Tiepolo, Petit Palais, Paris, 1935, no. 141.

2002: The Flowering of Florence, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2002, no. 1, repro.

Bibliography

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 42, repro.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 57, no. 332.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 246, repro. 98.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 30, repro.

1952: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 14, color repro.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 57, 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: 35, color repro. pl. 30.

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: 6, color repro.

1963: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:62. 2:pl.708.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 298, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 42.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:32, color repro.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 103, fig. 278.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 35, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 108, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:158-159; 2:pl. 112.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 09, no. 49, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 131, 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: 251-254, color repro.

2006: Fahy, Everett. "Early Italian paintings in Washington and Philadelphia." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1241 (August 2006): 538.

2013: Langhanke, Birgit. Die Madonnenreliefs im Werk von Antonio Rossellino. Ph.D. diss. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, 2013: 250, n. 31.

2017: Brilliant, Virginia. Italian, Spanish, and French Paintings in the Ringling Museum of Art. Sarasota, FL, and New York, 2017: xix.

2022: De Marchi, Andrea and Davide Civettini. Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino: Cristo di Dolori. Florence, 2022: 7, 40, n. 22.