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A woman holding a baby, who stands on her lap, is flanked by two men in a deep landscape in this horizontal painting. At the center of the composition, the woman sits behind a stone ledge. Her pale-skinned, oval face tips to our left, and she looks down and to our right with brown eyes. She has a long, straight nose, round cheeks, a slight double chin, and her pale lips are closed. A white cloth drapes over a translucent veil that covers her forehead. Her indigo-colored dress is edged with gold writing and ornamental designs against a red and black background. A parchment-brown cloth is tied as a belt under her bust. The nude child with notably pale skin stands on one of her knees, and she holds his other foot with one hand. Her other hand braces his chest, and he holds onto that thumb. His other hand is held up with the thumb and first two fingers raised toward the man to our left, at whom he looks. A halo, drawn as a thin gold line, encircles his blond curls. He has chubby cheeks and thighs but looks seriously at the man to our left. Both men have tanned skin, and they face inward, almost in profile. They are shown from about the hips up on the far side of the stone ledge. The man to our left is balding with a long, white beard. Wrinkles line his forehead and cheeks. He looks off to our right with shadowed eyes, and he has a hooked nose. He wears a tan garment under an ultramarine-blue cloak, which drops from one shoulder and wraps around his hips. He holds one hand to his chest and the other palm up. To our right, the second man looks to our left with deep-set eyes. He has high cheekbones, a straight nose, and his lips are parted. Copper-brown hair falls in shaggy curls to his shoulders, and he has a full, red beard. His hands are together in prayer in front of his chest, and a tall thin stick with a narrow crossbeam to make a cross is tucked into one elbow. His voluminous, carnation-pink robe almost covers a brown, shaggy garment beneath. Beyond the group, rocky cliffs lead back to a castle-like structure to our left and grassy, tree-dotted hills roll into the distance to our right. Pale gray and white clouds drift across a violet-purple and blue-streaked sky across the top quarter of the composition. The artist signed the work as if he had carved into the stone ledge in front of Mary: “IOANNES BAPTISTA PINXIT.”

Cima da Conegliano

Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, c. 1492/1495

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 10

Medium

oil on poplar panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 102 x 144 cm (40 3/16 x 56 11/16 in.)
overall: 104 x 146 cm (40 15/16 x 57 1/2 in.)

framed: 154.62 x 186.06 x 10.8 cm (60 7/8 x 73 1/4 x 4 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1937.1.33

Artists / Makers

Cima da Conegliano (artist) Venetian, c. 1459 - 1517 or 1518

Image Use

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

Inscription

lower center on the pedestal: IOANNES BAPTISTA PINXIT

Provenance

Possibly Giovanni Castelli, Venice, until 1712.[1] Baron Carlo Marochetti [1805-1867], Paris and London, or his son, Baron Maurizio Marochetti [d. 1916], Turin; by inheritance to Elena, the daughter of the latter, wife of Carlo Corrigioni d'Orelli.[2] (Jacques Seligmann & Co., Inc., Paris and New York); sold December 1919 to Sir Edgar Vincent, later 1st viscount D'Abernon [1857-1941], Esher and Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey;[3] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York), after 1925;[4] sold 15 December 1936 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[5] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] An inventory of the collection of Giovanni Castelli after his death, dated 3 March 1712, includes "Un detto [quadro] rappresentante la Vergine con il bambino, S. Gio. Batta e S. Girolamo, del Cima, in tavola"; published in Cesare Augusto Levi, Le collezioni veneziane d'arte e d'antichità dal secolo XIV. ai nostri giorni, 2 vols., Venice, 1900: 2:170. Franca Zava Boccazzi, "Contributo alla ritrattistica di Nicolo Cassana," AV 38 (1984): 97, 104-105, publishes an early twentieth-century transcription of a nineteenth-century list (values are given in Austrian florins) of a group of twenty-nine of the works listed in the Castelli inventory, including the above-mentioned Cima. These were apparently in the collection of an unnamed Venetian family until 1884, after which they were gradually dispersed. Since the other known works by Cima meeting this description (Museum des bildenen Künste, Leipzig; private collection, Milan; as well as a replica of the former in the Museo del Castelvecchio, Verona) can all be accounted for elsewhere before 1884 (Peter Humfrey, Cima da Conegliano, Cambridge, 1983: 105, 126, 192), it is likely that the reference is to the Washington painting, which could have passed to Baron Maurizio Marochetti (see note 2) after 1884.

[2] A letter (in NGA curatorial files) dated 13 May 1940 from Germain Seligmann, son of Jacques Seligmann, states that the painting was from the collection of Baron Marochetti. This has been interpreted as referring to Baron Carlo Marochetti, the well-known sculptor who lived in Paris and London and died in 1867. However, it probably refers to his son, Baron Maurizio Marochetti, of Turin, who was the Italian ambassador to Russia. (The Catalogue of the Contents of the Studio of the late Baron (Carlo) Marochetti, Christie, Manson and Woods, London, 7 May 1868, contains no reference to the Washington painting.) According to Fern Rusk Shapley (Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:131 n. 5), Ellis K. Waterhouse reported that the painting was once in the Orelli collection. Baron Maurizio's daughter Elena was married to Carlo Corregioni d'Orelli. See Marco Calderini, Carlo Marochetti, Turin, 1928: 47, 54; Vittorio Spreti, Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, 9 vols., Milan, 1928-1936: 4(1931):409. The location of the Orelli collection has not been determined.

[3] Germain Seligmann, in his memoir Merchants of Art: 1880-1960, New York, 1961: 126-127, describes his first meeting with Bernard Berenson, in 1919, at which his father, Jacques, showed the Washington painting to Berenson. He immediately pronounced it to be the work of Cima, "but added that he believed the landscape was by a lesser master, Santa Croce. With all due respect to the great expert, the name of Santa Croce just might have been mentioned to soften the price, for a few days later, Lord d'Abernon (later Ambassador to Berlin) came to purchase the painting at Mr. Berenson's suggestion, presenting just that argument for a lowering of the quoted figure." An opinion by Berenson (in NGA curatorial files), dated 3 February 1919, calls the painting "one of the most monumental, one of the grandest and noblest works of the Venetian School...among the few great achievements" of Cima, and dates it c. 1510. A letter of 8 July 1940 (in NGA curatorial files) from Duveen Brothers, Inc. to John Walker provides the information from Lord D'Abernon that the purchase was made in December 1919.

[4] Adolfo Venturi, "Opere poco note di Cima da Conegliano," L'Arte 29 (1926): 182-184, reprinted in Adolfo Venturi, Studi dal vero, Milan, 1927: 243-244, fig. 149 (1926, 182-184), gives the painting as belonging to D'Abernon when it was shown in 1925 in Berlin. Lord d'Abernon was British Ambassador to Berlin 1920-1926.

[5] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Castelli, Giovanni
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Marochetti, Carlo, Baron
Marochetti, Elena
Marochetti, Maurizio, Baron
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Seligmann & Cie., Jacques
Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon, Edgar, Sir
d'Abernon, Esher and Stoke

Bibliography

1923: Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 17(1935): 426-428, incorrectly identified as the painting of the same subject then in the con Speck-Sternberg collection, now in the Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig.

1926: Venturi, Adolfo. “Opere poco note di Cima da Conegliano.” L’Arte 29 (1926): 182-183.

1927: Venturi, Adolfo. Studi dal vero: Attraverso le racolte artistiche d’Europa. Milan, 1927: 243-244, fig, 149.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 40, no. 33.

1941: Richter, George Martin. "The New National Gallery in Washington." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (June 1941): 178.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 84.

1949: Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 35, repro.

1951: Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 82.

1953: Coletti, Luigi. La pittura veneta del Quattrocento. Novara, 1953: LXXV, 175, repro.

1957: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:68.

1957: Lasareff, Victor. “Opere nuove o poco note da Cima da Conegliano.” Arte Veneta 11 (1957): 46.

1959: Coletti, Luigi. Cima da Conegliano. Venice, 1959: 72, pl. 13.

1961: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. “Giunte al catalogo di Cima da Conegliano.” In Studi di storia dell’arte: Raccolta di saggi a Roberto Longhi. Arte Antica e Moderna 13-16 (1961): 187.

1961: Puppi, Lionello. “Per Pasqualino Veneto.” Critica d’Arte 8, no. 44 (1961): 39

1961: Seligman, Germain. Merchants of Art: 1880-1960, Eighty Years of Professional Collecting. New York, 1961: 127, pl. 30b.

1962: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. “Appunti alla mostra di Cima da Conegliano.” Arte Veneta 16 (1962): 223.

1962: Pignatti, Terisio. “Rapporti tra il Cima ed il Carpaccio attorno al primo decennio del Cinquecento.” La provincia di Treviso 5 (1962): 11.

1963: Rutteri, Maria Grazia. “Gian Battista da Conegliano.” Acropoli 3 (1963): 40.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 27.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 21, repro.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 53, 327, 407, 414, 645.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 70, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:130-131; 2:pl. 90.

1981: Menegazzi, Luigi. Cima da Conegliano. Treviso, 1981: 18, 20, 22, 42, 93-94, pls. 27-28.

1983: Humfrey, Peter. Cima da Conegliano. Cambridge and New York, 1983: 51, 118, 130-131, 166, 184-185, pl. 33.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 89, repro.

1989: Dantraique, Pierre. La peinture venitienne. Neuchâtel, 1989: 67, 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: 202-205, color repro.

2010: Battisti, Eugenio. “Il Cima e il significato storico delle sue immagini.” In Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, ed. Cima da Conegliano: poeta del paesaggio. Exh. cat. Palazzo Sarcinelli, Conegliano, 2010: 15, repro.

2013: Potočnik, Michele, and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, eds. Il paesaggio di Cima: Da Conegliano ai monti di Endimione. Treviso, 2013: 23, 109, cat. 4.

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