Chalice of Saint John the Evangelist [reverse]

c. 1470/1475

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States

Details

Title: Chalice of Saint John the Evangelist [reverse]
Date Created: c. 1470/1475
Physical Dimensions: painted surface: 30.2 x 23 cm (11 7/8 x 9 1/16 in.) overall: 31.2 x 24.4 cm (12 5/16 x 9 5/8 in.) framed: 41.3 x 33.2 x 3.5 cm (16 1/4 x 13 1/16 x 1 3/8 in.)
Provenance: Probably Bernardo Bembo, Venice or Verona [d. 1519]. Probably his son, Cardinal Pietro Bembo [1470-1547], Padua.[1] Nicolai Nikitich Demidov, Prince of San Donato [1773-1828], near Florence;[2] his son, Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, Prince of San Donato [1812-1870], near Florence; (his sale, Paris, 3 March 1870, no. 204, repro., etching by Rajou). Private collection, Italy, until c. 1928.[3] (Matthiesen Gallery, Berlin). (Paul Cassirer, Berlin).[4] Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza [1875-1947], Schloss Rohoncz, Hungary, and later, Villa Favorita, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland, by 1930;[5] on consigment 1950 with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); purchased 1951 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; [6] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA. [1] Letter of 31 August 1502 from Carlo Bembo, son of Bernardo, to Isabella d'Este, accompanying a loan of paintings to her in Mantua. The letter was published by Vittorio Cian, "Pietro Bembo e Isabella d'Este Gonzaga. Note e documenti," _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ 9 (1887), 85-86. Bernardo Bembo was at that time away from Venice on a diplomatic mission. Carlo Bembo died in 1503. For the Bembo family see _Dizionario biografico degli italiani_ (Rome, 1966), 8: 103-109 and 133-151. Approximately thirty years later (after Bernardo's death), Marcantonio Michiel's notes on what seems to be this diptych name the owner as the poet Pietro Bembo, another son of Bernardo: "The little painting with two wings of Saint John the Baptist clothed, with a lamb that sits in a landscape on one side, and Our Lady with the little Child on the other [side] in another landscape, by the hand of Hans Memling, year 1470, this being true." D. Jacopo Morelli, _Notizia d'opere di disegno_ (Bassano, 1800), 17, and Theodor von Frimmel, _Der Anonimo Morelliano (Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik_) N.F. I (Vienna, 1896), 86. Pietro Bembo's paintings were then in Padua. Jennifer Fletcher, "Marcantonio Michiel: his friends and collection," _Burlington Magazine_ 123 (1981), 461 dates Michiel's notice of Pietro Bembo's collection in the 1520's or early 1530's. [2] According to the catalogue of the Demidov sale, 3 March 1870, no. 204. [3] According to Max J. Friedländer, _Die altniederländishe Malerei_, 14 vols. (Berlin and Leiden, 1928), 6: 125. [4] According to Friedländer, in _Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections_, ed. by W.R. Valentiner, (London, 1930), unpaginated, no. 27. [The list of references published in the NGA systematic catalogue entry erroneously cites no. 37 rather than no. 27.] [5] According to the exhibition catalogue, _Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz_, Munich, Neue Pinakothek, 1930, no. 222. [6] Knoedler commission book no. 4, p. 143, no. CA 3725 and sales book no. 16, p. 310, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, Getty Research Institute (copies NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1908).
Medium: oil on panel

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