The Healing of Palladia by Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian
c. 1438/1440
Artist, Florentine, c. 1395 - 1455
Artwork overview
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Medium
tempera and oil on poplar panel
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
painted surface: 36.2 × 46.3 cm (14 1/4 × 18 1/4 in.)
framed: 49.53 × 59.69 × 6.35 cm (19 1/2 × 23 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.)
support: 38.1 × 47.5 cm (15 × 18 11/16 in.) -
Accession
1952.5.3
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
High altar of the church of San Marco, Florence, from about 1440 until about 1677.[1] Possibly in the passageway to the sacristy of the same church, by 1758,[2] or in the Spezieria of the Convent of San Marco (recorded here in the early 19th century).[3] possibly in the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, after 1810-1812, and from here (if not directly from the Spezieria) in private hands.[4] James-Alexander, comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier [1776-1855], Paris, by 1841; (his sale, Hôtel Pourtalès-Gorgier, Paris, 27 March-4 April 1865, no. 86, as by Masaccio); probably Edmond [1822-1896] and Jules Huot [1830-1870] de Goncourt, Paris.[5] (Julius Böhler, Munich).[6] Albert Keller [1879-1939], New York, by 1924; (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold 1944 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[7] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] Vasari, in the second edition of his Lives (1568), states that along with the main image, the predella of the altarpiece on the high altar of San Marco, representing "storie del martirio di San Cosimo e Damiano e degli altri" ("stories of the martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian and of others"), is also the work of Fra Angelico; see Giorgio Vasari, Opere, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols., Florence, 1878-1885: 2(1878): 508-509 (2nd ed. 1906, reprinted 1981, 1998). Another equally rare elaboration of the legend of the two saints was realized in Angelico's workshop in the so-called Annalena altarpiece (its main panel is now in the Museo di San Marco along with six elements of the predella; a seventh from the same series belongs to the Kunsthaus, Zurich; see John Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, 2nd ed., London and New York, 1974: 211-212). The predellas of these two works have been confused in the literature (see note 4), but the one formerly completing the Annalena altarpiece cannot be related to the San Marco high altar because of the smaller size of the single scenes. It is now generally thought to be the work of an assistant, who has been identified as Zanobi Strozzi; see Licia Ragghianti Collobi, "Zanobi Strozzi Pittore," Part I: CdA 22 (1950): 463-464.
The San Marco altarpiece was probably removed for a restoration of the church that was to take place in 1678-1679. On the restoration, see Giuseppe Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, 10 vols., Florence, 1754-1762: 7(1758): 136. Already Giovanni Cinelli in his edition of Francesco Bocchi, Le bellezze della città di Firenze, Florence (1591), 1677: 16, reported that the old altarpiece had been moved to the Convent.
[2] This location is indicated for the first time by Richa, Notizie istoriche, vol. 7 (1758): 143, and then by others up to Vincenzo Follini and Marco Rastrelli, Firenze antica e moderna illustrate, 8 vols., Florence, 1789-1802: 3(1791): 225; however, none mentions the predella. The old altarpiece was probably transferred to the passageway immediately after it was removed from the church, and it might have remained there until the suppression of the Dominican order in 1810.
[3] Father Vincenzo Marchese, in his Memorie dei più insigni Pittori, Scultori e Architetti Domenicani, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Florence, 1854: 1:249, reports that "innanzi l'abolizione dei Conventi in Firenze erano nella Farmacia di San Marco sette tavolette dell'angelico rappresentanti...il martirio de'Santi Cosma e Damiano, e un'altra con la Deposizione di Croce dello stesso pittore" ("before the abolition of the Convents in Florence there were in the Pharmacy of San Marco seven panels by Angelico representing...the martyrdom of Saints Cosimo and Damian, and another with the Deposition from the Cross by the same painter"). It could be that among the "bellissimi quadri" ("beautiful pictures") that Cambiagi Gaetano (L'Antiquario fiorentino o sia guida per osservar con metodo le cose notabili della città di Firenze, Florence, 1765: 38) said could be seen in the Spezieria, there were also elements of the predella, already separated from the main altarpiece and divided into individual panels. The transfer of the panels into the Spezieria is recorded also by a label glued to the back of the Deposition in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (WAF 38a) which reads: "Copia. Il quadro di Fra Angelico che si trova presso lo Speziale di St. M.co"; see Briefwechsel zwischen Ludwig I von Bayern und Georg von Dillis, 1807-1841, ed. by R. Messerer, Munich, 1966: 356.
[4] Neither the panel now in Washington nor its companions were ever in the Saint Luke chapel in Santissima Annunziata, where in the early nineteenth century there were six panels with stories of the same saints; these, belonging to the Annalena altarpiece, entered the Gallereia dell'Accademia in Florence in 1854 (Galerie des petits tableaux, no. 22; see Description des objets d'Art de la Royal Académie des Beaux-Arts de Florence, 12th ed., Florence, 1854: 29) and were subsequently transferred to the Museo di San Marco. The author of the Descrizione dell'Ie e R.e Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze , Florence, 1817: 22 n. 1; Maselli and Montani, 1832-1838, 307, n. 15; and other writers erroneously thought that six Cosmas and Damian panels then in Santissima Annunziata had originally belonged to the high altar of San Marco.
The series that concerns us here probably stayed in the Spezieria of San Marco only a short time. Already in 1813 the Deposition now in Munich was sold by a group of persons who seem to have owned it jointly ("Das Bild von Fra Angelico... welches 14 Patronen hat.." ("the picture by Angelico, the property of fourteen persons"), as Georg von Dillis explained to the purchaser, Prince Ludwig of Bavaria; see Briefwechsel..., ed. Messerer, 1966: 356). The above-mentioned Descrizione... (1817: 22, 24) reports that in the Galleria di Quadri Piccoli of the Accademia delle Belle Arti there were three "istorie di cinque Martiri" ("histories of five martyrs"), while the second edition of the same work (1827: 28) mentions only two, as do all the subsequent editions of the catalogue. These are The Healing of the Deacon Justinian by Cosmas and Damian and The Burial of the Two Saints and Their Three Younger Brothers, now part of the collection of the Museo di San Marco. The third panel can probably be identified as The Beheading of the Saints (Louvre, RF 340); on its back is a label dated 10 October 1817, according to which the work was transferred to the Accademia from San Marco and then given in exchange to a Prof. Nicola Tacchinardi (see Thomas Bodkin, "A Fra Angelico Predella," The Burlington Magazine 58 [1931]: 188, 194). As for the remaining five panels, we have no record of their transfer to the Accademia, and like the Deposition, they apparently came onto the Florentine art market directly from the Spezieria of San Marco. Marchese (1854: 249) states that this was the provenance of the four panels in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (WAF 36-38 and WAF 38a) and identifies them as "quattro quadretti dell'Angelico, rappresentanti storie del martirio dei santi Cosma e Damniano, ch'erano a San Marco...in Germania" ("four little paintings by Angelico, representing stories of the martyrdom of Saints Cosimo and Damiano, which were in San Marco [and now are] in Germany"), which were apparently restored in Florence in 1817 by Luigi Scotti. Of the paintings in the series now in Munich, The Saints before Lycias, Lycias Possessed by Devils, and The Saints Crucified reached their current destination only in 1827, and thus ten years earlier could still have been in Florence; see C. Syre, "Wirken Sie was Sie vermögen! Die Erwerbungen italienischer Gemälde in der Korrispondenz mit den Kunstagenten," 'Ihm, welcher der Andacht Tempel baut.' Festschrift zum Jubilaümsjahr 1986, Munich, 1986: 49. The fourth painting restored by Scotti in 1817 must therefore have been a different one from the Deposition by Fra Angelico, which was already in Munich in 1813. It might perhaps be The Saints Saved from Fire now in the National Gallery in Dublin (no. 249), which in 1848 was still in Florence, in the collection of Francesco Lombardi and Ugo Baldi (see Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti, 14 vols., Florence, 1568, ed. Le Monnier, 1846-1879: 4[1848]: 28-29 note 4); but it could also be the Washington painting, which is mentioned for the first time in Paris, in the Pourtalès-Gorgier collection, only in 1841 (see Léon-Jean-Joseph Dubois, Description des tableaux faisant partie des collections de M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier, Paris, 1841: 3, no. 3, as by Masaccio).
[5] A handwritten note with the name of the purchaser in the sale catalogue has been read as "de Zincourt" (Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:9), although with a question mark. Ellis Waterhouse (written communication to the Gallery, 22 July 1980) suggests instead the reading "de Goncourt," referring, obviously, to the two Parisian novelists, critics, and collectors, who were great admirers of quattrocento painting.
[6] Adolfo Venturi (Studi dal vero: Attraverso le raccolte artistiche d'Europa, Milan, 1927: 12) reports that the work used to belong to the art dealer Böhler, probably at the beginning of the 1920s; see also Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century, London, 1966: 94. There does not appear to be a stock card for this painting among the Böhler Gallery records at the Getty Research Institute.
[7] The painting has been hanging in the National Gallery since 1945, when it was still part of the Kress collection (see Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1959): 32). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2188.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1930
Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930 (listed in news article as among paintings sent to the exhibition, but not in catalogue).
1941
Educational Loan Exhibition, Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1941, no. 10.
1946
Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 790.
2005
Fra Angelico, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005-2006, no. 34G, repro.
2018
Florence and its Painters: From Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, 2018-2019.
Bibliography
1841
Dubois, Léon-Jean-Joseph. Description des tableaux faisant partie des collections de M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier. Paris, 1841: 3, no. 3.
1923
Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 10(1928):96.
1924
Schottmüller, Frida. Fra Angelico da Fiesole, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1924: 145 repro., 263-264, 272, 276.
1926
Comstock, Helen. “Paintings in the Keller Collection.” _International Studio_85 (September 1926): 14, 16, 19-20.
Wingenroth, Max. Angelico da Fiesole. 2nd ed. Ed. Frida Schottmüller. Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1926: 56.
1927
Venturi, Adolfo. Studi dal vero: Attraverso le raccolta artistiche di Europea. Milan, 1927: 12-14, 15, fig. 2.
1929
Singleton, Esther. Old World Masters in New World Collections. New York, 1929: 39, repro.
“American Loans to Italian Show in London.” Art News 28 (29 December 1929): 4.
Muratoff, Paul. Fra Angelico. London and New York, 1929: 43-44.
1931
Bodkin, Thomas. “A Fra Angelico Predella.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 58 (1931): 184, 188, 192-194, pl. III-d.
1932
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932: 22.
1933
Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America, 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1938:2: pl.181.
1936
Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936: 19.
1940
Paatz, Walter, and Elisabeth Paatz. Die Kirchen von Florenz: ein kunstgeschichtliches Handbuch. 6 vols. Frankfurt am Main, 1940-1954: 3(1952):44.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 32, repro.
Douglas, Robert Langton. “The Reconstruction of Dismembered Altarpieces. How Far Is It Possible?” Art Quarterly 8, no. 4 (1945): 290-292, 294 n. 17, 295, fig. 4.
1946
Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 22, color repro.
Douglas, Robert Langton. "Recent Additions to the Kress Collection." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 88 (1946): 81, 82.
1950
Collobi Ragghianti, Licia. “Zanobi Strozzi pittore – I.” Critica d’arte 23 (1950): 468 n. 18.
1952
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 16, color repro.
Kaftal, George. Saints in Italian Art. Vol. 1 (of 4), Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting. Florence, 1952: 291-292, repro.
Pope-Hennessy, John. Fra Angelico. London, 1952: 13, 15, 174-175, fig. 9.
1955
Collobi Ragghianti, Licia. “Studi angelichiani.” Critica d’arte 7 (January 1955): 39.
Salmi, Mario, et al, eds. Mostra delle opere di Fra Angelico. Exh. cat. Palazzo Apostolico Vaticano, Vatican City, 1955: 65-68.
Collobi Ragghianti, Licia. “Una mostra di Angelico.” Critica d’Arte 10 (July 1955): 392.
Salmi, Mario. “Review of John Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico.” Commentari 6 (1955): 147.
1956
Baldini, Umberto. “Contributi all’Angelico: La predella della Pala di San Marco e l’Armadio degli Argenti della SS. Annunziata.” Commentari 7 (April-June 1956): 78, 82-83.
National Gallery of Irleand. Catalogue of Pictures of the Italian School. Dublin, 1956: 10.
1957
Gómez-Moreno, Carmen. “A Reconstructed Panel by Fra Angelico and Some New Evidence for the Chronology of His Work.” The Art Bulletin 39, no. 3 (September 1957): 190 n. 26, 191 n. 28.
1958
Salmi, Mario. Il Beato Angelico. Spoleto, 1958: 113, fig. 68b.
David-Danel, Marie-Louise. Iconographie des saints Médecins Côme et Damien. Lille, 1958: 88-95, 178, 185.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 52, 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: 28, repro., color repro. pl. 24.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 298, repro.
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:16.
1964
Orlandi, Stefano. Beato Angelico. Florence, 1964: 74 n. 1.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 8.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:22, color repro.
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 94-95, fig. 258, 262.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 2, repro.
1970
Baldini, Umberto. L’opera completa dell’Angelico. Milan, 1970: 102, cat. 60b, pl. 33.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA., 1972: 9, 646.
1974
Pope-Hennessy, John. Fra Angelico. 2nd ed. London and New York, 1974: 26, 200, 201, fig. 36.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 12, repro.
1977
Cole, Diane Elyse. "Fra Angelico: His Role in Quattrocento Painting and Problems of Chronology." Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1977: 269-271.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:8-10; 2:pl. 6, 7A.
1981
Ahl, Diane Col. "Fra Angelico: A New Chronology for the 1430s." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 44 (1981): 157.
Brejon de Lavergnée, Arnauld, and Dominique Thiébaut. Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du Musée du Louvre. 2, Italie, Espagne, Allemande, Grande-Bretagne et divers. Paris, 1981: 144.
Hertz, Anselm. Fra Angelico. Freiburg, Basel, and Vienna, 1981: 136.
1983
Castelfranchi Vegas, Liana. Italia e Fiandra nella pittura del Quattrocento. Milan, 1983: 93, 106 n. 29.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 87, no. 44, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 19, repro.
De Marchi, Andrea. “Per la cronologia dell’Angelico: Il trittico di Perugia.” Prospettiva 42 (July 1985): 53.
1986
Baldini, Umberto. Beato Angelico. Florence, 1986: 163-164, 248.
1990
De Marchi, Andrea. “Beato Angelico.” In Luciano Bellosi, ed. Pittura di luce. Giovanni di Francesco e l’arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento. Exh. cat. Casa Buonarroti, Florence, 1990: 86.
Bellosi, Luciano, ed. Pittura di luce. Giovanni di Francesco e l’arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento. Exh. cat. Casa Buonarroti, Florence, 1990: 86.1990: 90-93.
Improta, Cristina. “La pittura su tavola dell’Angelico e del Quattrocento.” In La Chiesa e il Convento di San Marco a Firenze. 2 vols. Florence, 1989-1990: 2(1990):107.
1993
Alce, Venturino. Angelicus pictor. Vita, opere e teologia del Beato Angelico. Bologna, 1993: 173.
Hood, William. Fra Angelico at San Marco. New Haven and London, 1993: 100, 112, fig. 100.
Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 355.
1996
Spike, John T. Fra Angelico. New York, London, and Paris 1996: 226-228, cat. 71B.
Syre, Cornelia, and Veronika Poll-Frommel. Fra Angelico: die Münchner Tafeln und der Hochaltar von San Marco in Florenz. Munich, 1996: 23-26, 37 n. 23, fig. 14.
1997
Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA: One Hundred Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. St. Louis, 1997: 196-197, 215, color repro.
1998
Bartz, Gabriele. Guido Di Piero, known as Fra Angelico, ca. 1395-1455. Konemann, 1998: repro. no. 48.
Bonsanti, Giorgio. Beato Angelico. Catalogo completo. Florence, 1998: 142-144, cat. 66.
2000
Cornini, Guido. “Beato Angelico.” Art et Dossier 155 (April 2000): 35.
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: 13-20, color repro.
2008
Ahl, Diane Cole. Fra Angelico. London, 2008: 123, fig. 86.
Scudieri, Magnolia. "La Pala di San Marco: apogeo della committenza medicea e manifesto della tradizione domenicana." In Cristina Acidini and Magnolia Scudieri, eds. L'Angelico ritrovato: Studi e ricerche per la Pala di San Marco. Milan, 2008: 44-45, 54, figs. 44, 61.
Scudieri, Magnolia, and Sara Giacomelli. “Alla ricerca della Pala perduta: ipotesi e…fantasie ricostruttive.” In Cristina Acidini and Magnolia Scudieri, eds. L'Angelico ritrovato: Studi e ricerche per la Pala di San Marco. Milan, 2008: 132, figs. 155-157, 164.
Russo, Giuseppe. “Tavole con ipotesi di ricostruzione.” In Cristina Acidini and Magnolia Scudieri, eds. L'Angelico ritrovato: Studi e ricerche per la Pala di San Marco. Milan, 2008: 135-141, repro.
2013
"Vasari and the National Gallery of Art." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 11, repro.
2014
Andrews, Lew. "Fra Angelico and narrative time, mostly predella panels." Arte Cristiana 102, no. 880 (2014): 26, fig. 5.
2016
Bacchi, Andrea, and Andrea De Marchi, eds. La Galleria di Palazzo Cini. Dipinti, sculture, oggetti d'arte. Venice, 2016: 136, repro.
2017
Schumacher, Andreas, ed. Florentiner Malerei. Alte Pinakothek: Die Gemälde des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 2017: 255, 258, fig. 13.9.
2018
Villa, Renzo. Beato Angelico. Pisa, 2018: 168-169, repro.
2021
Strehlke, Carl Brandon. "Fra Angelico: Domenican Painter or Medici Painter?" In Cecilia Frosinini, ed. La Pala di San Marco di Beato Angelico: restauro e ricerche. Problemi di conservazione e restauro. Ospedaletto, Pisa, 2021: 22-23.
Gardner von Teuffel, Christa. “The First Florentine Tavola Quadra? Fra Angelico’s High Altar-piece in San Marco.” In Cecilia Frosinini, ed. La Pala di San Marco di Beato Angelico: restauro e ricerche. Problemi di conservazione e restauro. Ospedaletto, Pisa, 2021: 52, fig. 5.
2022
Nethersole, Scott. "Fra Angelico's The Miracle of the Black Leg: Skin Colour and the Perception of Ethiopians in Florence before 1450." Art History 45, no. 2 (April 2022): 266.
Wikidata ID
Q3778391