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A haloed man with his back to us approaches a crowd gathered in a crate-like box unexpectedly set into a rocky landscape in this square painting. The central man, Jesus, is covered with a white cloth across one shoulder and both hips, and he carries a white banner marked with a red cross. He is barefoot as he steps on the opening to the box, which is hinged along the bottom edge. The door has crushed a wild-haired demon with red-colored skin against the pebble-strewn ground below. More than two dozen men and women of all ages are crowded into the box, their round faces tipped back and looking toward Jesus. All the people have pale skin. Jesus reaches out his left hand to hold the wrist of a man with a long white beard and hair, who kneels to the left. This kneeling man wears a dark, fur-like garment, and a hoe is hooked across his bent knee. Jesus holds the hand of a second man, who also kneels, to our right. This man wears a canary-yellow robe edged in blue, and he grips Jesus’s wrist with his second hand. A man wearing a purple toga over another fur-like garment stands behind. The box-like structure is set within a massive, striated boulder. More rocky cliffs rise to each side of the central form, and the sky above is sapphire blue.

Benvenuto di Giovanni

Christ in Limbo, probably 1491

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 8

series Title

Passion of Our Lord

Medium

tempera on panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 42.1 × 46.6 cm (16 9/16 × 18 3/8 in.)
overall size: 43 × 48.7 cm (16 15/16 × 19 3/16 in.)

framed (with four other paintings): 59.69 × 283.21 × 5.4 cm (23 1/2 × 111 1/2 × 2 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1952.5.54

Artists / Makers

Benvenuto di Giovanni (artist) Sienese, 1436 - before 1517

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Luigi de Angelis [1758-1832, custodian of the Siena Library from 1812], Siena, by 1824.[1] Acquired 1875 through Sir John Charles Robinson [1824-1913], London, by Sir Francis Cook, 1st bt. [1817-1901], Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey;[2] by inheritance to his son, Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd bt. [1844-1920], Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Herbert Frederick Cook, 3rd bt. [1868-1939], Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th bt. [1907-1978], Doughty House, and Cothay Manor, Somerset; sold April 1946 to (Francis A. Drey, London).[3] (Wildenstein & Co., New York); purchased June 1949 by the Samuel H. Kress Collection, New York;[4] gift 1952 to NGA.

[1] According to a handwritten note of that date by the abbot De Angelis in the Archives of the Uffizi (De Angelis, folio 337r.). The note first describes in detail the altarpiece Ascension of Christ (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, no. 434) that was originally in the atrium of the sacristy of the monastery of Sant'Eugenio near Siena, and from there moved to Siena to the city's old university called the Sapienza. De Angelis continues: "In my modest possession are four little pictures two thirds of a braccio high and one and one-sixth braccio wide, with lovely little figures, which could easily be mistaken for the work of Mantegna. One very crowded with figures represents the capture in the garden, one the crucifixion, the third the resurrection and the fourth, painted with great skill, is the descent into Limbo. All four are by Benvenuto." He does not state it explicitly, but it is very probable that De Angelis knew the provenance of these paintings and the fact that they originally belonged with the Ascension of Christ by Benvenuto, which at least since 1768 was missing its predella (see Guglielmo Della Valle (Lettere sanesi...sopra le belle arti, vol. 3, Rome, 1786: 44). Probably at the time the altarpiece was moved from the church the predella, as was customary, was divided into "little pictures" distributed among the monks' cells. The NGA paintings 1952.5.52-.55 would then be purchased from the monastery, probably already framed together (as suggested by the wrong order in which they are described by De Angelis), in the same form they would have when illustrated in the catalogue of the Cook collection (see note 2).

Luigi De Angelis (on whom see Ubaldo Cagliaritano, Mamma Siena, Siena, 1971: 523) was entrusted with gathering and reordering the works of art belonging to the suppressed religious orders and thus with creating what was to become the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. It is not known what happened to his own collection after his death.

[2] See Tancred Borenius, A Catalogue of the Paintings in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bt., 3 vols., London, 1913: 1: no. 6.

[3] See copy of correspondence in NGA curatorial files, from the Cook Collection Archive in care of John Somerville, England. There is no record of who purchased NGA 1952.5.52-.55 from Drey. See Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 67 n. 7, in which she states: "Dr. Paul Drey wrote to the National Gallery in a letter of Sept. 20, 1946: 'All four panels were sold by Sir Francis [Ferdinand Maurice] Cook [4th bt.]; since then they have been sold again and, to my regret, the present owner does not want to have his name known.'" The Wildenstein invoice (see note 4) lists only all four Cook family owners.

[4] The four paintings were with Wildenstein & Co. by at least February 1949, when John Walker saw them (see his 28 February 1949 letter to George Wildenstein, copy in NGA curatorial files). The Wildenstein invoice to the Kress Foundation for 16 items, including the predella paintings, is dated 23 June 1949 (copy in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/519).

Associated Names

Angelis, Luigi de
Cook, 1st bt., Francis, Sir
Cook, 2nd bt., Frederick Lucas, Sir
Cook, 3rd bt., Herbert Frederick, Sir
Cook, 4th bt., Francis Ferdinand Maurice, Sir
Drey, Francis A.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Robinson, John Charles, Sir
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.