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A young person with dark blond hair, wearing a knee-length, pale yellow toga, stands playing a violin-like instrument at the center of this long, horizontal landscape painting. A pair of people are to the left and another pair to the right. Most of the people have pale skin, and two of the men have slightly darker, tanned complexions. The person at the center, Apollo, nearly spans the height of the painting. He tips his head back and to our right, toward the instrument on his shoulder, and he looks at us with dark eyes, lips parted. With his other hand, he holds a bow to the instrument’s strings. A dark green wreath of leaves encircles his long hair, and a quiver of arrows is tied with a pine-green ribbon across his chest. His legs are bare, and he wears sandals. An archer’s bow lies on the dirt ground behind his feet. To our right, a man with a dark beard and hair, Marsyas, sits on a rock playing a bagpipe. He faces our left in profile, looking up at Apollo, and he wears a red robe over a royal-blue tunic. Behind him and to our right, near the edge of the panel, a blond woman wearing a rose-pink dress also plays a bagpipe as she looks down onto her reflection in a pool below, in the lower right corner of the composition. Her left foot rests on a white and gold shield, and a golden helmet sits next to her other foot. Marsyas and Apollo appear again as a pair to our left. Marsyas is now nude and tied to a tree, his body facing us, near the left edge of the panel. His mouth is open and he looks toward Apollo, who approaches from our right. Apollo grabs Marsyas’s left wrist, on our right, and holds a knife to the nude man’s upper arm. The set of bagpipes, the quiver of arrows, Marsyas’s clothing, and Apollo’s instrument are strewn on the ground around the men’s feet. The scenes take place in a rocky landscape with dark green shrubs along the bottom edge of the composition and behind the people. A river runs across the land beyond, and people walk along dirt roads in the distance. Trees, craggy cliffs, and a town in the deep distance are painted with icy blue under a blue sky.

Sienese 16th Century, possibly Bartolomeo di David

Apollo and Marsyas, c. 1540

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 19

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

overall: 55.9 x 117 cm (22 x 46 1/16 in.)

framed: 75.6 x 136.2 x 8.6 cm (29 3/4 x 53 5/8 x 3 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.350

Artists / Makers

Sienese 16th Century (painter) Sienese, 16th century

Bartolomeo di David (painter) Sienese, 1482 - 1545/46

Image Use

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

Provenance

Possibly John Francis Austen [d. 1893], London and Capel Manor, Horsmonden, Kent, England; probably by inheritance with house and contents to his widow, Mrs. John Fancis Austen [Georgiana F. Pearse]; (Austen sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 10 July 1931, no. 47, as by Cariani); purchased by (Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna). (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence and Rome); sold 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1939 to NGA.[2]

[1] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/294.

[2] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: I:14-16.

Associated Names

Austen, John Francis
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Galerie Sanct Lucas
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Pearse, Georgiana F.

Exhibition History

1998: A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 1, fig. 22.

Bibliography

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 65, no. 443, as by Florentine School, XVI Century.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 248, repro. 103, as by Florentine School, XVI Century.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 88, repro., as by Florentine School, XVI Century.

1959: Winternitz, Emanuel. “The Curse of Pallas Athena. Notes on a “Contest between Apollo and Marsyas” in the Kress Collection.” In Studies in the History Art Dedicated to William E. Suida. London, 1959: 186-195, figs. 1-4, as possibly by a North Italian (Brescian?) artist.

1963: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:177, as by Piero di Cosimo (?).

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 50, as by Florentine School.

1966: Bacci, Mina. Piero di Cosimo. Milan, 1966: 131, pl. 68, as by Baldassare Peruzzi.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 42, repro., as by Florentine School.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 162, 467, 646, as Attributed to Baldassare Peruzzi.

1973: Pope-Hennessy, John. “Review of Shapley, Kress Catalogues.” Times Literary Supplement (17 August 1973): 944, as by Baldassare Peruzzi.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 5, fig. 6, as by Sienese School, Early XVI Century.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 128, repro., as by Florentine School.

1977: Brown, David Alan. “An Apollo and Marsyas by Anselmi.” Antologia di belle arti 1 (1977): 2-6, figs.1, 2, 6, as by Michelangelo Anselmi.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:14-16; 2:pl. 9, as by Michelangelo Anselmi.

1982: Sricchia Santoro, Fiorella. “Bartolomeo di David?” Prospettiva 29 (April 1982): 39-40, fig. 18, as by Bartolomeo di David.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 30, repro., as by Michelangelo Anselmi.

1986: Ford, Terrence, compiler and ed. Inventory of Music Iconography, no. 1. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York 1986: 3, no. 47, as by Michelangelo Anselmi.

1988: Sricchia Santoro, Fiorella. “Bartolomeo di David.” In Fiorella Sricchia Santoro, ed. Da Sodoma a Marco Pino: pittori a Siena nella prima metà del Cinquecento. Exh. cat. Palazzo Chigi Saracini, Siena, 1988: 107, 114, as by Bartolomeo di David.

1989: Dacos, Nicole. “La Collezione Chigi Saracini, Giorgio di Giovanni e Bartolomeo di David.” Bollettino d’Arte 56-57 (July – October 1989): 142, 143, as by Bartolomeo di David.

1990: Bagnoli, Alessandro. “Bartolomeo di David.” In Alessandro Bagnoli, Roberto Bartalani, and Michele Maccherini, eds. Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo. Exh. cat. Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Duomo, Oratorio di San Bernardino, Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala, and Palazzo Bindi Sergardi, Siena, 1990: 317, fig. 7, as by Bartolomeo di David.

1992: De Marchi, Andrea. “Bartolomeo di David.” In Allgemeines Künsler-Lexicon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. 119 vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1992-2023: 7(1993): 281, 282, as by Bartolomeo di David

1992: Viatte, François. “Michelangelo Anselmi.” In Hommage à Philip Pouncey. L’oeil du connaisseur: Dessins italiens du Louvre . Exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1992: 62-63, as not by Michelangelo Anselmi.

1996: Wyss, Edith. The Myth of Apollo and Marsyas in the Art of the Italian Renaissance: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Images. Newark, Delaware, and London, 1996: 85-86, fig. 51, 151 cat. 69, as Attributed to Michelangelo Anselmi.

2016: Ekserdjian, David, ed. Correggio e Parmigianino: Arte a Parma nel Cinquecento. Exh. cat. Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 2016: 224, as not by Michelangelo Anselmi.

2017: Fattorini, Gabriele. “Baldassarre, Mecarino e il Sodoma: la pittura senese negli ultimi decenni della Repubblica.” In Alessandro Angelini et al, eds. Il buon secolo della pittura senese: Dalla maniera moderna al lume caravaggesco. Montepulciano, San Quirico d’Orcia, Pienza. Exh. cat. San Quirico d’Orcia and Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, Siena, 2017: 121, 123, fig. 18, as by Bartolomeo di David.