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Michele Giambono

Saint Peter, c. 1445/1450

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 13

Medium

tempera on poplar panel

Dimensions

overall: 87.7 x 35.9 cm (34 1/2 x 14 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.80

Artists / Makers

Michele Giambono (artist) Venetian, active 1420/1462

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Probably Marchese Galeazzo Dondi dall'Orologio, Padua, by 1871;[1] sold probably in the late 1800s and, in any case before 1912, to (Stefano Bardini [1836-1922], Florence);[2] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome); purchased September 1931 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] There described by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in North Italy, Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Milan, Friuli, Brescia, from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century, 2 vols., London, 1871: 1:295 n. 1: "There are pictures in Padua which have the stamp of Gentile, and may for want of a better name be called by that of Nerito: ex.gr. Padua, Marchese Galeazzo Dondi Orologio, St. Michael enthroned with a dragon under his feet, natural in pose. His dress is that of an ecclesiastic; with much embossment. The manner of the artist is a mixture of Guariento and Michele Giambono, perhaps a little better than that of the pictures by the latter. Were not our attention called to Nerito, we should say this was a work by Giambono... Further St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, and a bishop, oblong panels, in possession of Conte [sic] Galeazzo Dondi-Orologio." On the Dondi Dall'Orologio family, see Vittorio Spreti, Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, 9 vols., Milan, 1928-1931: 2:623.

[2] Tancred Borenius (ed.) in Crowe and Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in North Italy..., 2nd ed., 3 vols., New York, 1912: 3 n. 1) was unable to trace the panel, which had probably already been sold by 1895. Another painting from the same altarpiece, Saint Michael the Archangel Enthroned (Biblioteca Berenson at Villa I Tatti, near Florence), also from the Dondi dall'Orologio household, was by 1895 in London in the collection of Jean Paul Richter (see Bernard Berenson, Venetian Painting, Chiefly before Titian, at the Exhibition of Venetian Art, London, 1895: 6).

[3] The bill of sale that includes the painting is dated 13 September 1931 (copy in NGA curatorial files); see also the Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1882.

Associated Names

Bardini, Stefano
Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Dondi dall'Orologio, Galeazzo, Marchese
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.

Exhibition History

1932: An Exhibition of Italian Paintings Lent by Mr. Samuel H. Kress of New York to Museums, Colleges, and Art Associations, travelling exhibition, 24 venues, 1932-1935, mostly unnumbered catalogues, p. 35 or p. 39, repro.

1938: Exhibition of Venetian Painting From the Fifteenth Century through the Eighteenth Century, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June-July 1938, no. 28, repro.

1938: Special Exhibition of Venetian Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Seattle Art Museum; Portland Museum of Art, Oregon; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama, August-October 1938, no catalogue.

1940: Four Centuries of Venetian Paintings, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, 1940, no. 24, repro.

Bibliography

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 77, no. 191.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 243, repro. 112.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 25, repro.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 126, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 58.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 79-80, fig. 221.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 50, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 152, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:207; 2:pl. 143.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 175, repro.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2003: 309-314, color repro.

2011: Boskovits, Miklós, ed. The Alana Collection, Newark, Delaware, USA. Vol. II: Italian Paintings and Sculptures from the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century. Florence, 2011: 124, 129, 130, 131-134, fig. 5.