The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple

1398-1399

Paolo di Giovanni Fei

Painter, Sienese, c. 1335/1345 - 1411

This painting is divided into three vertical panels that show people gathered in different parts of a temple, which spans the composition. Each panel is framed by a white and blue latticed arch. The people’s pale skin is tinged with green and they have rosy cheeks. Almost all of their robes, cloaks, and dresses are edged with gold. The central panel is the widest, about half again as wide as each side panel, and a bit taller than the other two. In it, a young blond girl, Mary, stands with her hands folded together in front of two bearded men. Mary leans slightly away from one of the men and looks off to our left. She wears a pale blue garment densely patterned with glimmering gold. She and one of the men next to her have shiny gold halos. The haloed man slightly bows toward Mary, hands out. His gold robe is lined with red, and he wears a white peaked hat with a gold band around the base. The second man stands behind this pair, his hands lifted, palms out. A rose-pink robe is covered by a crimson-red cloak, and a white cloth covers most of his balding head. This trio stands on a raised platform accessed on three sides by seven steps. Coral-red columns with white capitals hold up gray arches above, which in turn support a rose window at the top center of this panel. Two small boys stand at the base of the steps, their backs to us. Both have blond hair and wear red stockings. One wears a white and gold polka-dotted, high-necked robe and the other wears red and points at Mary. Six people fill the arch to our left. A woman with her head and neck covered by a white veil holds up one hand as she clutches her muted blue, gold-edged cloak around her body. She and the bearded, balding man next to her, who wears blue and pink, both have shiny halos. Three more people are barely visible next to and beyond this pair. The sixth person kneels and crosses the left and center panels. They wear a laurel-green robe and look up at Mary. In the panel to our right, two men stand in front of a balcony occupied by eight blond women. Both men are bearded. One has brown hair covered by a black hood, and he wears a pale blue robe under a shell-pink cloak. He looks off to our left, at Mary, and holds his hands clasped down in front of his torso. The other man looks at the first with one hand raised, the thumb pointing toward the center. He has gray hair covered by a white hood, and wears butterscotch-yellow and red. The women above wear dresses in red, pink, yellow, marine blue, or white dotted with gold. The spaces behind the groups on either side panel are backed by gray stone archways lined with coral-red molding. The floor across all three is patterned with squares and rectangles in red, black, and white. Low, white stone walls span the width of the side panels and open up to the center.

Media Options

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This engaging narrative scene was the center panel of an altarpiece commissioned in 1398 for the Chapel of Saint Peter, near the high altar of the cathedral in Siena. It would have been flanked, in all probability, by standing saints—one of them Peter—and surmounted by other saints shown half-length. Originally, the structure would have been gabled at the top, with elaborate gold moldings framing each section.

According to legend, the Virgin entered the temple in Jerusalem at age three and remained until she was 14. In this depiction, she stands at the top of the long stair with a last sidelong look at her parents, yet she remains fearless and strong. Like those of the high priest who receives her, Mary’s robes are splendid gold brocade. These were created with a technique called sgraffito, in which paint is scraped away in patterns to reveal gilding below that is then textured with tiny punches. Equally lavish is the interior of Solomon’s temple, which is treated as a Gothic church. The complex space is easily read, airy with lots of light and a brilliant palette—cool blues, salmony pinks, and glassy greens. A gallery at the right is filled with the girls who will be Mary’s companions. One, at the back, seems to be on tiptoe, trying hard to see this girl who would be fed each day by an angel. On the other side, near Mary’s parents, Anna and Joachim, another onlooker cranes for a glimpse and a woman kneels, her face half hidden by a pillar. Such rich details enliven and humanize a sacred event, making it more accessible to a contemporary viewer.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on wood transferred to hardboard

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 146.1 × 140.3 cm (57 1/2 × 55 1/4 in.)
    overall: 147.2 × 140.3 cm (57 15/16 × 55 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.4

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, 1398-1399

This horizontal painting is made up of three parts: in the center square panel, a woman reclines under a wooden shelter set into a rocky cave, which is surrounded by angels, and narrower wings to either side are each occupied by a standing man. All the people have pale skin, which is tinged with faint green. The three panels are joined with a gold frame, and the gold background behind the central scene and the men in the side panels are covered with a noticeable network of cracks. In the central panel, a cobalt-blue robe nearly envelopes the reclining woman’s body; this is Mary. It covers her head and falls open where she crosses her wrists over her chest to show a pink garment underneath. A flat gold halo encircles her head ,and her body is surrounded by a field of crimson red, almost like an aura. She rests under a wooden structure with a pitched roof, which is surrounded by craggy, barren rock. A swaddled infant lies in a rectangular, tray-like manger. The infant’s head is also surrounded by a gold halo. Fine gold rays emanate down into the structure from a star just above the peak of the roof. A bull and a donkey look down at the baby from the far side of the manger. The interior of the structure behind them is black. In a smaller scale, two women wash a haloed infant in a tub in front of the rocky cave near the lower left corner of this panel. A man with a white beard and hair sits to our left of Mary, holding a pink cloak at his throat and looking toward the infant. Above and around the rocks, seven winged and haloed angels cluster on each side. One angel to the right presents a scroll with black writing to two men accompanied by a dog and several sheep in the lower right. The man in the panel to the left, Isaiah, has a gray beard and long, wavy hair, and he wears a lilac-purple cloak draped over a coral-orange robe. In his right hand, on our left, he holds an unfurled scroll with large black lettering. His other hand is raised with one finger pointing upward. He looks to our left, away from the central scene. On the right, Ezekiel, echoes Isaiah's pose. Ezekiel holds an open scroll with his left hand, on our right, and his other hand is raised. He also wears a coral-colored robe, but his is overlaid with a blue cloak. His receding hair is short and brown, as is his beard. Like Isaiah, he takes up most of the height of the panel and gazes to our left, toward the central panel.

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned in 1398[1] for the chapel of San Pietro in Siena Cathedral,[2] where it remained at least until 1482.[3] It is probable, however, that the altarpiece was removed only between 1580 (when a new, richly decorated marble altar was commissioned for the chapel) and 1582 (when the decoration of the new altar was completed). At this time it was then either consigned to the cathedral’s storerooms or sold.[4] H.M. Clark, London, by 1928.[5] Edward Hutton [1874-1969], London.[6] (Wildenstein & Co., New York), by 1950;[7] sold February 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[8] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Gaetano Milanesi, Documenti per la storia dell'arte senese, 3 vols., Siena, 1854: 2:37; Scipione Borghesi and Luciano Banchi, Nuovi documenti per la storia dell'arte senese 1, Siena, 1898: 62; Monica Butzek, "Chronologie," In Die Kirchen von Siena, multi-vol., ed. Waltee Haas and Dethard von Winterfeld, vol. 3, part 1.1.2, Munich, 2006: 102. Payments to Paolo di Giovanni Fei “per la tavola di sancto Piero et sancto Pavolo, per sua fatiga e colori” were made, specifies Monica Butzek (2006), between 1398 and April 1399.
[2] Pietro Lorenzetti’s altarpiece of the Birth of the Virgin, also painted for the Cathedral of Siena in 1342 (see Carlo Volpe, Pietro Lorenzetti, ed. Marco Lucco, Milan, 1989: 152-154), is surmounted, like The Presentation of the Virgin discussed here, by three arches included in a heavy frame. The present appearance of these paintings is misleading, however. Fourteenth-century altarpieces were generally realized on rectangular panels, not silhouetted like these, and integrated above by triangular or trapezoidal gables partially overlapped by the integral frame. See Monika Cämmerer George, Die Rahmung der toskanischen Altarbilder in Trecento, Strasbourg,1966: 144-165; Christoph Merzenich, Vom Schreinerwerk zum Gemälde. Florentiner Altarwerke der ersten Hälfe des Quattrocento, Berlin, 2001: 43-56.
[3] Enzo Carli, Il Duomo di Siena, Genoa, 1979: 85-86.
[4] On 9 September 1579, the Congrega di San Pietro, patron since 1513 of the chapel dedicated to this saint (the second altar from the entrance in the north aisle), commissioned the stonecutters Girolamo del Turco and Pietro di Benedetto da Prato to realize a new marble structure around the altar. This sculptural decoration was completed in April 1582. It is presumed that between the two dates Paolo’s panel, considered antiquated, was removed. See Butzek 2006, 197.
[5] Daily Telegraph Exhibition 1928, 162. Concerning the unknown whereabouts of the painting between 1582 and 1928, a handwritten note on a photograph of the painting, formerly owned by Bernard Berenson (now in the Biblioteca Berenson at Villa I Tatti, Florence), suggests a provenance from the collection at Corsham Court, Wiltshire, which the British diplomat Sir Paul Methuen (1672–1757) had formed in the eighteenth century, and which, by the mid-nineteenth century, had been enriched with paintings from the collection of the Rev. John Sanford (1777-1855) through the 1844 marriage of Sanford’s daughter and sole heir, Anna Horatia Caroline Sanford (1824–1899), to Frederick H.P. Methuen, 2nd baron Methuen (1818-1891). See Benedict Nicolson, "The Sanford Collection," The Burlington Magazine 98 (1955): 207–214. However, this suggestion appears to be in error. James Methuen-Campbell, who inherited Corsham Court in 1994 and has extensively researched the family collections, kindly reviewed the manuscript material for both the Sanford and Methuen collections, and found no reference to the painting (see his e-mail to Anne Halpern, of 15 February 2012, in NGA curatorial files). The painting also does not appear among those disposed of by Sanford on the occasion of two London sales: a sale by private contract under the auspices of George Yates (24 April 1838, and days following), and a sale at Christie & Manson (9 March 1839).
[6] Information given in Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956.
[7] According to the handwritten note on the photograph referenced above (see note 5), the painting was with Wildenstein by October 1950.
[8] The bill of sale (copy in NGA curatorial files) is dated 10 February 1954, and was for fourteen paintings, including Presentation of the Virgin by Bartolo di Fredi; payments by the foundation continued to March 1957. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2275.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1928

  • Daily Telegraph Exhibition of Antiques and Works of Art, Olympia, London, 1928, no. X1, as by Bartolo di Fredi.

Bibliography

1928

  • The Daily Telegraph at Olympia, ed. The Daily Telegraph Exhibition of Antiques and Works of Art. Exh. cat., Olympia, London, 1928: 162.

1951

  • Meiss, Millard. Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death. Princeton, 1951: 28, fig. 165.

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 28, repro., as by Bartolo di Fredi.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 35, repro., as by Bartolo di Fredi.

1960

  • Campolongo, Elizabetta. "Fei, Paolo di Giovanni." In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Edited by Alberto Maria Ghisalberti. 82+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 46(1996):15, 16.

1964

  • Mallory, Michael. "Towards a Chronology for Paolo di Giovanni Fei." The Art Bulletin 46 (1964): 529-535, figs. 1, 3, 4.

  • Lafontaine-Dosogne, Jacqueline. Iconographie de l’enfance de la Vierge dans l’Empire byzantin et en Occident. 2 vols. Bruxelles, 1964-1965: 2:30 n. 1.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 49.

  • Mallory, Michael. "Paolo di Giovanni Fei." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1965. Ann Arbor, MI, 1973: 3, 116-141, 237, fig. 50.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 62, fig. 159.

  • Schiller, Gertrud. Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst. 6 vols. Gütersloh, 1966-1990: 4, pt. 2:71.

  • Mallory, Michael. "An Early Quattrocento Trinity." The Art Bulletin 48 (1966): 86, fig. 2.

1967

  • Klesse, Brigitte. Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts. Bern, 1967: 250.

  • Denny, Don. "Simone Martini’s The Holy Family." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 30 (1967): 139 n. 4.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 42, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:130. 2:pl. 418.

1969

  • Mallory, Michael. "A Lost Madonna del Latte by Ambrogio Lorenzetti." The Art Bulletin 51 (1969): 42 n. 14.

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. Marias Demut und Verherrlichung in der sienesischen Malerei: 1300-1450. The Hague, 1969: 6, fig. 4.

1971

  • Carli, Enzo. I pittori senesi. Siena, 1971: 22, 133, fig. 115.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 69, 300, 647.

  • "Paolo di Giovanni Fei." In Dizionario Enciclopedico Bolaffi dei pittori e degli Incisori italiani: dall’XI al XX secolo. Edited by Alberto Bolaffi and Umberto Allemandi. 11 vols. Turin, 1972-1976: 8(1975):315.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 126, repro.

1977

  • Torriti, Piero. La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. I Dipinti dal XII al XV secolo. Genoa, 1977: 179, 180, 202.

  • Maginnis, Hayden B. J. "The Literature of Sienese Trecento Painting 1945-1975." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 40 (1977): 300.

  • Bennett, Bonnie Apgar. Lippo Memmi, Simone Martini’s “fratello in arte”: The Image Revealed by His Documented Works. PhD diss. University of Pittsburgh, 1977. Ann Arbor, MI, 1979: 136, 143, 250 n. 24, fig. 76.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:175-177; 2:pl. 122.

  • Carli, Enzo. Il Duomo di Siena. Genoa, 1979: 85-86.

1981

  • Carli, Enzo. La pittura senese del Trecento. 1st ed. Milan, 1981: 241, fig. 282.

1982

  • Il gotico a Siena: miniature, pitture, oreficerie, oggetti d’arte. Exh. cat. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Florence, 1982: 295, 296, 298, 317.

1983

  • L’Art gothique siennois: enluminure, peinture, orfèvrerie, sculpture. Exh. cat. Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon. Florence, 1983: 277, 278, 284.

  • Carli, Enzo. Sienese Painting. New York, 1983: 48.

  • Early Italian Paintings and Works of Art 1300-1480 in Aid of the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Exh. cat. Matthiesen Fine Art, London, 1983: 34.

  • Frederick, Kavin. "A Program of Altarpieces for the Siena Cathedral." The Rutgers Art Review 4 (1983): 26-29, fig. 4.

1984

  • Torriti, Piero. "Un’aggiunta a Paolo di Giovanni Fei." in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Roberto Salvini. Florence, 1984: 211-212.

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. Sienese Altarpieces 1215-1460. Form, Content, Function. 2 vols. Groningen, 1984-1990: 2(1990):135-137, repro.

1985

  • Riedl, Peter Anselm, and Max Seidel, eds. Die Kirchen von Siena. 3 vols. Munich, 1985-2006: 1(1985), pt. 1:123, 124.

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 299, repro.

  • Boskovits, Miklós. The Martello Collection: Paintings, Drawings and Miniatures from the XIVth to the XVIIIth Centuries. Florence, 1985: 128.

  • Cole, Bruce. Sienese Painting in the Age of the Renaissance. Bloomington, 1985: 13, 14, fig. 8.

  • Freuler, Gaudenz. "Bartolo di Fredis Altar für die Annunziata-Kapelle in S. Francesco in Montalcino." Pantheon 43 (1985): 26.

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. "Tradition and Innovation in Some Altarpieces by Bartolo di Fredi." The Art Bulletin 67 (1985): 52-54, fig. 3.

1986

  • Leoncini, Giovanni. "Fei, Paolo di Giovanni." In La Pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento. Edited by Enrico Castelnuovo. 2 vols. Milan,1986: 2:570, repro.

1987

  • Christiansen, Keith. "The S. Vittorio Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral." The Art Bulletin 69 (1987): 467.

  • Pope-Hennessy, John, and Laurence B. Kanter. The Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 1, Italian Paintings. New York, 1987: 38.

1988

  • Maginnis, Hayden B. J. "The Lost Facade Frescoes from Siena’s Ospedale di S. Maria della Scala." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 51 (1988): 190.

1991

  • Manacorda, Simona. "Fei, Paolo di Giovanni." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 6(1995):133.

1992

  • Landi, Alfonso, and Enzo Carli (commentary). “Racconto” del Duomo di Siena (1655). Florence, 1992: 120-121, n. 30.

1993

  • Harpring, Patricia. The Sienese Trecento Painter Bartolo di Fredi. London and Toronto, 1993: repro. 112.

  • Cséfalvay, Pál, ed. Keresztény Múzeum (Christian Museum Esztergom). Budapest, 1993: 222.

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 106.

1994

  • Freuler, Gaudenz. Bartolo di Fredi Cini: ein Beitrag zur sienesischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts. Disentis, 1994: 341, 382.

1996

  • Freuler, Gaudenz. "Bartolo di Fredi Cini." In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 7:329.

  • Gold Backs: 1250-1480. Exh. cat. Matthiesen Fine Art, London. Turin, 1996: 116, fig. 3.

1997

  • Chelazzi Dini, Giulietta, Alessandro Angelini, and Bernardina Sani. Sienese Painting From Duccio to the Birth of the Baroque. New York, 1997:198, 200-201.

  • Chelazzi Dini, Giulietta. "La cosidetta crisi della metà del Trecento (1348-1390)." In Pittura senese. Edited by Giulietta Chelazzi Dini, Alessandro Angelini and Bernardina Sani. 1st ed. Milan, 1997: 200.

1998

  • Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 70, 98, 358, 379, 428.

1999

  • Norman, Diana. Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State. New Haven and London, 1999: 225, nos. 28, 43.

2000

  • Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 88, 90-91, figs. 89-90, color fig. 91.

2002

  • Tomei, Alessandro, ed. Le Biccherne di Siena: arte e finanza all’alba dell’economia moderna. Exh. cat. Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome. Azzano San Paolo [u.a.], 2002: 174.

2003

  • Norman, Diana. Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena (1260-1555). New Haven and London, 2003: 143 (repro.), 145.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 12, no. 7, color repro.

  • Hiller von Gaertringen, Rudolf. Italienische Gemälde im Städel 1300-1550: Toskana und Umbrien. Kataloge der Gemälde im Städelschen Kunstinstitut Frankfurt am Main. Mainz, 2004: 140, 149, 151.

2005

  • Bagnoli, Alessandro, Silvia Colucci, and Veronica Radon, eds. Il Crocifisso con i dolenti in umiltà di Paolo di Giovanni Fei: un capolavoro riscoperto. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, 2005: 11, 12, 32, 34 nos. 18 and 21, 49, 51, 53, 60, 62.

2006

  • Butzek, Monica. “Chronologie.” In Die Kirchen von Siena, 3: Der Dom S. Maria Assunta, 1: Architektur, pt. 1. Edited by Walter Haas and Dethard von Winterfeld. Munich, 2006: 102, 103 n. 1347.

2008

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and Johannes Tripps, eds. Maestri senesi e toscani nel Lindenau-Museum di Altenburg. Exh. cat. Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, 2008: 81, 84, 90.

  • Fattorini, Gabriele. "Paolo di Giovanni Fei: una proposta per la pala Mannelli (con una nota sull’iconografia di San Maurizio a Siena)." Prospettiva 130/131 (2008): 176, 182 n. 40.

2016

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 104-111, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20173319

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