Skip to Main Content
Home>Collection>Bishop Alvise Grimani

Provenance

Possibly Countess Lauredana Gatterburg-Morosini [d. 1884], Venice; (her sale, Palazzo Morosini, Venice, 15-22 May 1894, no. 635).[1] (Stefano Bardini [1836-1922], Florence); (his sales, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 26-30 May 1902, no. 603, as by Van Dyck, Portrait of a Cardinal[2] and American Art Galleries, New York, 23-27 April 1918, 3rd day, no. 465, as Italian School, Portrait of a Spanish Cardinal).[3] (E. & A. Silberman Galleries, New York);[4] purchased 1946 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] The catalogue gives no dimensions, but describes the picture as a "portrait d'un évêque, représenté en pied, de face, grandeur nature, tenant un livre d'heures." Although no inscription is mentioned, this could also be the copy now in Genoa (see note 9). Many of the items in the sale came from the Grimani collection, as the last member of the Grimani family had married a Morosini in the eighteenth century, as noted in the introduction to the catalogue and by Cesare Augusto Levi, Le collezioni veneziane d'arte e d'antichità dal secolo XIV ai nostri giorni, Venice, 1900: lv.

[2] No. 676 in the French edition of the catalogue. Both catalogues gave incorrect dimensions (187 x 185 cm or 78 x 53 in.).

[3] No documentation survives for the provenances of paintings purchased by Bardini; his surviving papers cover only the period 1905-1915. The Grimani portrait does not appear in earlier Bardini sales. Fiorenza Scalia and Cristina De Benedictis, Il Museo Bardini a Firenze, Milan, 1984: 65, 79.

[4] According to a note from Silberman (NGA curatorial files), the painting was in the Royal Palace, Budapest, until it was sold at auction in 1868; it subsequently passed to Count Ambroszy-Migaszy, Budapest, before being brought to the United States at an unknown date. It has not been possible to locate sales or other catalogues for these collections, and this information remains unverified.

[5] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century, London, 1973: 88, and Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:136-137, and to notes in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/392.

Exhibition History

1984
Baroque Portraiture in Italy: Works from North American Collections, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota: Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 1984-1985, no. 71, repro.
1995
Bernardo Strozzi: Master Painter of the Italian Baroque, The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1995, no. 22.

Technical Summary

The support consists of a coarse, plain-woven fabric to which a narrower strip of similar fabric about 10.2 cm wide was joined by a vertical seam at the right. The fabrics were evidently sewn together before the painting process began. The ground is a moderately thick layer of warm gray with a second tan layer under the figure, the miter, and the table. The paint was applied in opaque layers that range in consistency from full-bodied paste to fluid semitranslucent paint in areas such as the tablecloth. Details were added with more fluid paint over the dry underlayer. The hair was loosely brushed in as a final single, thin, opaque layer. The damask pattern in the greenish-gray habit was built up of thickly applied swirls in the same color to create a relief pattern. The pattern and embroidery of the miter were freely brushed in with sweeping strokes of color followed by lines made with a small hard object like the handle of a brush, which exposed the tan underlayer. The white lace was painted over a strip of very dark gray paint. A triangle of dark brown paint extends approximately 25 cm along the top and about 15 cm down the left side.[1] The left side of the collar was originally brushed in wider and spread farther from the center opening.

Although there is a lack of cusping, the composition does not appear to have been cut down. Air-path x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy suggests that the paint used for the mozzetta contains smalt as well as smaller amounts of vermilion and lead white. The present gray-green color is due to discoloration of the smalt. There is extensive inpainting in the red tablecloth, the shadows of the right hand and tablecloth, and in the background to the right side of the figure from elbow to mid-thigh. Inpainting in the lower portion of the right side of the robe and throughout the background presumably compensates for abrasion. There is a fabric insert below the bishop's right hand. The considerably discolored varnish is thicker over the darker areas of the picture. Conservation files record that the painting was relined and underwent slight restoration in 1947 by Stephen Pichetto.

[1] In the copy this may have been interpreted as a curtain. Also, there is no evidence of a tassel having been present in the right background, as seen in the copy.

Bibliography

1951
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 142, no. 61, repro.
1955
Matteucci, Anna Maria. "L'attività veneziana di Bernardo Strozzi." Arte Veneta 9 (1955): 66, 151-152, fig. 166.
1955
Mortari, Luisa. "Su Bernardo Strozzi." Bollettino d'Arte 40 (1955): 322.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 222, repro.
1960
Pignatti, Terisio, ed. Il Museo Correr di Venezia: Dipinti del XVII e XVIII secolo. Venice. 1960: 324.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 126.
1966
Mortari, Luisa. Bernardo Strozzi. Rome, 1966: 66, 182, 193, fig. 353.
1967
Milkovich, Michael. Bernardo Strozzi. Paintings and Drawings. Exh. cat. University Art Gallery, State University of New York, Binghamton, 1967: repro. p. 98.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 112, repro.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 193.
1973
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 88, fig. 158.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 334, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:436-437; 2:pl. 316.
1981
Pallucchini, Rodolfo. La pittura veneziana del seicento. 2 vols. Milan, 1981: 1:158, 2:fig. 462.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 232, no. 298, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 384, repro.
1989
Bartoletti in La pittura in Italia. Edited by Mina Gregori and Erich Schleier. 2 vols. Rev. ed. Milan, 1989: 2:894.
1995
Bernardo Strozzi. Exh. cat. Genoa, 1995: 212, repro.
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: 249-253, color repro. 251.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 165, no. 125, color repro.

Related Content

  • Sort by:
  • Results layout:
Show  results per page
The image compare list is empty.