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The Adoration of the Magi
Giovanni di Paoloc. 1450
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: The Adoration of the Magi
- Creator: Giovanni di Paolo
- Date Created: c. 1450
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 26.9 x 46.4 cm (10 9/16 x 18 1/4 in.) framed: 35.9 x 56.4 x 5.2 cm (14 1/8 x 22 3/16 x 2 1/16 in.)
- Provenance: John Rushout, 6th bt. and 2nd baron Northwick [1770-1859], Northwick Park, near near Moreton-in-the-Marsh, originally Worcestershire, now Gloucestershire, and Thirlestane House, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire;[1] (his estate sale, Phillips, at Thirlestane House, 26 July-30 August 1859, 10th day [10 August], no. 973, as _The Adoration of the Kings_ by Gentile da Fabriano); (Daniell, London);[2] sold to William Fuller Maitland [1813-1876], Stansted Hall, Stansted, Essex;[3] by inheritance to his son, William Fuller Maitland [1844-1932], Stansted Hall; sold after 1893 to (Robert Langton Douglas, London);[4] Dr. Eduard Simon [1864-1929], Berlin, by 1914;[5] (his estate sale, Cassirer and Helbing, Berlin, 11 October 1929, no. 3); (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[6] purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[7] gift 1937 to NGA. [1] On this collection see Frank Herrmann, _The English as Collector. A Documentary Chrestomathy_, London, 1972: 320-326, and Oliver Bradbury and Nicholas Penny, "The picture collecting of Lord Northwick: Part I and Part II," _Burlington Magazine_ (August and October 2002): 485-496 and 606-617. The fact that Gustav Friedrich Waagen, _Treasures of Art in Great Britain_, 3 vols., London, 1854: 3:195-212, does not mention the painting in describing his visit to Thirlestane House does not mean that it was not there; in fact the eminent connoisseur could not make notes, as he himself informs us, of more than 200 of the some 800 pictures seen during his short stay. [2] Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:222. [3] _Catalogue of Pictures at Stansted Hall_, 1872: 8, as by Gentili [sic] da Fabriano. The painting is already cited by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, _A New History of Painting in Italy, from the II to the XVI Century_, 3 vols., London, 1864-1866: 3(1866):80 n. 6) as owned by Maitland. Not included in the sale of the collection on 10 May 1879 at Christie, Manson & Woods, London, it remained with the collector's son and heir. [4] The painting is listed in the 1893 _Catalogue of Pictures at Stansted Hall_ as number 17, by Gentili da Fabriano. See also Max J. Friedlander, _Die Sammlung Dr. Eduard Simon_, Berlin, 1929: 22, no. 3, and Denys Sutton, "Robert Langton Davis. Part 2," _Apollo_ 109, no. 207 (May 1979): 373; according to Friedlander the painting was acquired by Douglas from "Stanstead [sic] House." See also letter from Douglas to Fowles dated 1 May 1941, Duveen Brothers Records, Box 244 (reel 299). [5] The painting is described in the catalogue of the Berlin _Ausstellung_ (1914, no. 123) as being in the Simon collection, on which see Barbara Paul, "Das Kollektionieren ist die edelste aller Leidenschaften," _Kritische Berichte_ 21, no. 3 (1993): 51-53. The acquisition was probably a fairly recent one. Edward Hutton (in Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, _A New History of Painting in Italy..._, 3rd ed., ed Edward Hutton, 3 vols, London and New York, 1908-1909: 3:126 n. 8) was unaware of it and erroneously identified the ex-Maitland _Adoration_ as the one that during his time belonged to the collection of Richard von Kaufmann in Berlin (today in the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo). Tancred Borenius (in Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, _A New History of Painting in Italy..._, 2nd ed., ed. Langton Douglas and Tancred Borenius, 6 vols., London, 1903-1914: 5(1914):176 n. 6) also did not know the whereabouts of the painting. [6] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 143, box 288, folder 1; copies in NGA curatorial files. [7] The original invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.
- Medium: tempera on panel
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