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The Crucifixion with Saint Jerome and Saint Francis
Francesco Pesellinoc. 1445/1450
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: The Crucifixion with Saint Jerome and Saint Francis
- Creator: Pesellino
- Date Created: c. 1445/1450
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 61.5 x 49.1 cm (24 3/16 x 19 5/16 in.) framed: 96.5 x 75.6 x 10.2 cm (38 x 29 3/4 x 4 in.)
- Provenance: Melzi collection, Milan.[1] (Robert Langton Douglas [1864-1951], London and Dublin);[2] sold to (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome); sold July 1932 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; [3] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] The NGA _Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture_, Washington, D.C., 1941, mentions the Melzi collection, Milan, which is the provenance information given in the bill of sale to the Kress Foundation. Fern Rusk Shapley, in _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century_, London, 1966: 110, and _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:364, refers to it as the collection of the Duchessa Melzi d'Eril in Milan, whose famous collection is known to have contained mostly Lombard paintings and only one Tuscan work, a tondo attributed to Ghirlandaio (see Guido Carotti, _Capi d'arte appartenenti a S.E. la Duchessa Josephine Melzi d'Eril Barbo_, Bergamo, 1901: 32, and Giulio Melzi d'Eril, _La Galleria Melzi e il collezionismo milanese del tardo Settecento_, Milan, 1973). There did exist in Milan, however, another collection with the same name, albeit less well-known--that of the lawyer Gennaro Melzi, who began to collect in the early years of this century; a part of this collection was placed at auction in 1928 (see _La raccolta Melzi_, Galleria Pesaro, Milan, 19-23 March 1928). The sale catalogue does not list the Gallery's painting, which could have been purchased privately either before or after the auction. [2] See the letter of 1 May 1941 from Douglas to Edward Fowles of Duveen Brothers, in which Douglas writes: "I sold this picture to Count Contini." (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series II.I, Collectors' files, reel 299, box 244, folder 3, copy in NGA curatorial files.) [3] The bill of sale for a polychrome wooden statue, two vases, a green velvet cope, a book of Piazzetta drawings, and ten paintings, including the Pesellino, which is titled _Crucifixion and Two Saints_, is dated 29 July 1932 (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2127.
- Medium: tempera on poplar panel
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