Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Angels

c. 1465/1470

Matteo di Giovanni

Artist, Sienese, c. 1430 - 1497

Shown from the thighs up, a woman holding a baby is surrounded by a man, woman, and two winged angels in this vertical painting. Mary, the central woman, the baby, Jesus, and the other woman, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, have pale, peach-toned skin. The man, Saint Jerome, and two angels have slightly darker peach-colored skin with faint gray shading. They all have gold halos, wide-set, hooded, light brown eyes, long, straight noses, delicate mouths, and pointed chins where we can see. Mary sits with her knees angled to our right, and she looks down at the baby held sitting upright near that shoulder. The crown of her head is covered by a white veil down to her forehead. A lapis-blue cloak drapes over the back of her head, her shoulders, and across her lap. There is a gold starburst on the right shoulder, to our left, and the cloak is edged in gold. The dress she wears is patterned ruby red on garnet red and decorated with shimmering, bright gold designs. She supports Jesus’s bottom with her left hand, to our right, and braces his chest with her other hand. He has small features with chubby cheeks, a high hairline with blond hair, and a chubby body. He grips the neckline of her dress with his right hand, to our left, and touches the hand that holds his chest with the other. He is nude except for a translucent white cloth around his chest and hips. To our left, Saint Jerome looks down at and writes in a book with a dark green cover using a feather quill. He is balding and has a long white beard. His forehead is lined, his cheeks hollow, and his lips parted. He wears a red robe over a white garment with a white collar. To our right, Saint Catherine looks at Jesus and holds a blue-covered book and black quill pen in one hand and a fragment of a wooden wheel lined with spikes with the other. Her blond hair is wrapped with and around a white cloth, and she wears a white-on-white patterned dress under a silver-gray cloak. One angel looks on from between Mary and the other looks up and to our right from behind Jesus. Both have their lips parted. The one to our right wears a pale pink garment and holds up one hand. The background is shiny, bright gold punched along the top and upper corners with a geometric design.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 8

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 66 x 44 cm (26 x 17 5/16 in.)
    framed: 97.8 x 72.4 x 9.5 cm (38 1/2 x 28 1/2 x 3 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.297

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly George Ashburnham, 3rd earl of Ashburnham [1760-1830], Florence and Ashburnham Place, Battle, Sussex; by inheritance to his son, Bertram Ashburnham, 4th earl of Ashburnham [1797-1878], Ashburnham Place;[1] by inheritance to his son, Bertram Ashburnham, 5th earl of Ashburnham [1840-1913], Ashburnham Place; by inheritance to his daughter, Lady Mary Catherine Charlotte Ashburnham [d. 1953], Ashburnham Place; (Robert Langton Douglas [1864-1951], London);[2] sold August 1919 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] sold 1922 to Clarence H. Mackay [1874-1938], Roslyn, New York, until c. 1930;[4] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[5] sold 1938 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[6] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] The collection was formed by the fourth earl and by his father George, the third earl of Ashburnham. As there is no record of their collecting activities, it is not clear which of the two acquired the individual items. After the death of the fourth earl, however, no paintings were added to the collection. See The Ashburnham Collections, Part I. Catalogue of Paintings and Drawings..., Sotheby's, London, 24 June 1953: 3-4.
[2] The Duveen Brothers Records list the painting as "Ashburnham Colln." and "ex Langton Douglas"; (copy in NGA curatorial files; X Book, Reel 422, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). It is known that Robert Langton Douglas was in touch with the Ashburnham family in order to acquire paintings from their collection; see Denys Sutton, "Robert Langton Douglas," Apollo 109 (1979): 452. See also letter from Douglas to Fowles dated 1 May 1941, Duveen Brothers Records, Box 244 (reel 299).
[3] The Duveen Brothers Records indicate that the painting was paid for on 11 August 1919 (see note 2).
[4] Mackay's collection was built up by Duveen Brothers. When he had financial difficulties during the Depression, starting around 1930, the same firm assisted him in selling the pictures in his collection; see Edward Fowles, Memories of the Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 157.
[5] At the time of the Detroit exhibition of 1933, the painting was again with Duveen Brothers.
[6] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:330. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1368.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1924

  • Loan Exhibition of Important Early Italian Paintings in the Possession of Notable American Collectors, Duveen Brothers, New York, 1924, no. 21 (no. 30 in illustrated 1926 verion of catalogue).

1933

  • The Sixteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters. Italian Paintings of the XIV to XVI Century, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1933, no. 60.

1988

  • Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988-1989, no. 48, repro., as Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Catherine of Alexandria and Two Angels (cat. by K. Christiansen, L.B. Kanter and C.B.Strehlke).

Bibliography

1923

  • Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 16(1937):358-359, 361, repro.

1924

  • Offner, Richard. “A Remarkable Exhibition of Italian Paintings.” The Arts 5, no. 5 (May 1924): 257.

1925

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. “The Clarence H. Mackay Collection.” International Studio 81, no. 339 (August 1925): 335, 343, 344, repro.

1926

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. The Clarence H. Mackay Collection. New York, 1926: 4, no. 5, repro.

1929

  • Cortissoz, Royal. "The Clarence H. Mackay Collection." International Studio 94 (1929): 33.

  • Singleton, Esther. Old World Masters in New World Collections. New York, 1929: 9-12.

1932

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932: 351.

1936

  • Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936: 302.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 94, repro.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 131, no. 408.

  • Richter, George Martin. "The New National Gallery in Washington." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (June 1941): 178.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 247, repro. 152.

1944

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 22, repro.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 48, repro.

1949

  • Brandi, Cesare. Quattrocentisti senesi. Milan, 1949: 268.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 83, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 89.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 78, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:261.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 139, 646.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 230, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:329-230; 2:pl. 238.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 266, repro.

1987

  • Trimpi, Erica S. "Matteo di Giovanni: Documents and a Critical Catalogue of his Panel Paintings." Ph.D. diss. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1987: 236-238.

1989

  • Hood, William. "Sienese Quattrocento Painting. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York." The Burlington Magazine 131 (1989): 243.

1993

  • Angelini, Alessandro. "Matteo di Giovanni." In Luciano Bellosi, ed. Francesco di Giorgio e il Rinasicmento a Siena 1450-1500. Exh. cat. Chiesa di Sant'Agostino, Siena, 1993: 526.

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 545.

2002

  • Dabell, Frank. “La fortuna di Matteo di Giovanni tra Inghliterra e Stati Uniti dall’Otto e Novecento.” In Davide Gasparotto and Serena Magnani, eds. Matteo di Giovanni e la pala d’altare nel senese e nell’aretino 1450-1500. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Sansepolcro, 9-10 Ottobre 1998). Montepulciano, 2002: 18.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 509-512, color repro.

2006

  • Angelini, Alessandro. “Matteo di Giovanni: percorso esemplare di un quattrocentista senese.” In Cecilia Alessi and Alessandro Bagnoli, eds. Matteo di Giovanni: Cronaca di una strage dipinta. Exh. cat. Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, 2006: 18.

2016

  • Bacchi, Andrea, and Andrea De Marchi, eds. La Galleria di Palazzo Cini. Dipinti, sculture, oggetti d'arte. Venice, 2016: 125.

Inscriptions

upper center on the Madonna's halo: AVE.GRATIA PLENA.DO[MINVS TECVM] (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; from Luke 1:28)

Wikidata ID

Q20173864

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