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Two pale-skinned men face each other across surging waves in a cove surrounded by trees in this horizontal painting. Tall trees to each side have dark, gnarled trunks and small, olive-green leaves. They curve toward each other like parentheses. Swirling sage-green and muted turquoise water kicks up waves highlighted with ivory white. The water heaves in great waves back into the distance where it meets a blue form, which could be a mountain or more water. The men are small in scale within the domineering landscape. One man stands on the shore near the lower left corner. His topaz-blue cloak lifts high in the wind behind him. He is barefoot, has long brown hair, and he holds out one hand toward the second man, who is waist-deep in the water. That second man’s honey-yellow and blue robes whirl around him as he lunges forward, arms spread wide. The narrow band of land spanning the bottom edge of the canvas is strewn with jugs and bits of stone and lumber. A pale ship with a man leaning over our side is barely visible on the right at the mouth of the cove. Above the scene, a robin’s egg-blue sky peeks out from wide streaks of flax-yellow and peanut-brown clouds.

Alessandro Magnasco

Christ at the Sea of Galilee, c. 1740

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 30

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 118.1 x 146.7 cm (46 1/2 x 57 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1943.4.31

Artists / Makers

Alessandro Magnasco (artist) Italian, 1667 - 1749

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

(Arthur Sambon, Paris). Benno Geiger [1882-1965], Vienna. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence) by 1929;[1] purchased 1939 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1943 to NGA.

[1] In Alessandro Magnasco, Exh. cat. Galerie Sambon, Paris, 1929, the painting is cited as in the Contini collection, but not exhibited.

[2] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/507.

Associated Names

Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Geiger, Benno
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Sambon, Arthur

Exhibition History

1940: Golden Gate International Exposition, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1940, no. 161.

1940: Paintings by Alessandro Magnasco, Durlacher Brothers, New York, 1940, no. 1.

1996: Alessandro Magnasco 1667-1749, Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1996, no. 43, repro.

Technical Summary

The support is a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric. It was prepared with a grayish white ground, over which was applied a reddish brown imprimatura. A thin layer of dark brown patint was used to lay in the lower landscape, and the figures and other elemements were roughed in over it using unblended strokes of lead white paint. After the figures were completed, thick swaths of paint were applied with random strokes in the landscape area. Finally, impastoed highlights and details were added. The reddish brown imprimatura shows through in the sky and landscape, where it serves as a middle tone.

There are significant losses and abrasion throughout. The largest loss is to the right of Christ, encompassing most of his left side and all of his arm. The yellowed varnish is generally thick but thinner in lighter passages. The painting was relined, discolored varnish was removed, and the painting was restored by Stephen Pichetto in 1940. Most recently, discolored varnish was removed and the painting was restored by Mario Modestini in 1960.

Bibliography

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 119, no. 532, as Christ Calling Saint Peter.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 250, repro. 142, as Christ Calling Saint Peter.

1943: Morandotti, Alessandro. Cinque pittori del settecento. Rome, 1943: 71.

1945: Geiger, Benno. Saggio d'un catalogo delle pitture di Alessandro Magnasco. Venice, 1945: 88.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 141, repro., as Christ Calling Saint Peter.

1947: Evans, Grose. "The Subtle Satire of Magnasco." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 32 (1947): 42, figs. 1, 3.

1949: Geiger, Benno. Magnasco. Bergamo, 1949: 87, 152-153.

1951: Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 103-105, repro., as Christ Calling Saint Peter.

1962: De Logu, Giuseppe. La natura morta italiana. Bergamo, 1962: 126.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 81.

1966: Dürst, Hans. Alessandro Magnasco. Teufen, 1966: 24, 104, fig. 31.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 71, repro.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 117.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 112, fig. 211.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 208, repro.

1977: Franchini Guelfi, Fausta. Alessandro Magnasco. Genoa, 1977: 132-134, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:293-295; 2:pl. 208.

1984: Grigoriva, Irina, and Asja Kantor-Gukouskja. I grandi disegni italiani delle collezioni dell'Ermitage di Leningrado. Milan, 1984: cat. 59.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 344, no. 468, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 241, repro.

1991: Franchini Guelfi, Fausta. Alessandro Magnasco. Soncino, 1991: 24.

1994: Muti, Laura. Alessandro Magnasco. Faenza, 1994: 267, nos. 390, 391 (repro.), as by Magnasco and Peruzzini.

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: 178-184, color repro. 181.