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The Adoration of the Child
Filippino Lippic. 1475/1480
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: The Adoration of the Child
- Creator: Filippino Lippi
- Date Created: c. 1475/1480
- Physical Dimensions: painted surface: 81.5 x 56.3 cm (32 1/16 x 22 3/16 in.) support: 82.5 x 57.3 cm (32 1/2 x 22 9/16 in.) framed: 117.2 x 91.1 x 8.3 cm (46 1/8 x 35 7/8 x 3 1/4 in.)
- Provenance: Grand Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen [1826-1914], by 1872;[1] sold April 1930 by his heirs to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[2] sold 15 December 1936 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[3] gift 1937 to NGA. [1] The painting is listed by Jordan in Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, _A New History of Painting Italy, from the II to the XVI Century_, German ed., trans. Max Jordan, 6 vols. in 8 parts, Leipzig, 1869-1876: 4, part 2(1872): 593, as being in the grand ducal collection at Meiningen, but it was probably a relatively recent acquisition. In fact, writing in 1909, Voss (in Georg Voss, _Herzogtum Sachsen-Meiningen Bau-und Kunst-Denkmäler Thüringens_ no. 34, Jena, 1909, 163-164) states that the paintings were purchased for the most part by Grand Duke Georg II "some decades ago." It can be conjectured that the purchases began (or at least became more numerous) after 1866, when he became _Herzog_ of Saxe-Meiningen. There is a red wax seal of the Saxe-Meiningen family on the reverse of the panel. Although the earlier provenance of the panel is unknown, the presence of a Parisian customs stamp on the back could indicate that at one time the painting belonged to a French collector or dealer. Duveen Brothers also sent the painting to Paris twice (see note 2). [2] The Duveen Brothers prospectus, in NGA curatorial files, says the painting "was disposed of by the _Fideikommisse_ (Trustees) [of the Saxe-Meiningen family] in 1929," and this was the year published in Miklós Boskovits, David Brown et al., _Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art_, Washington, D.C., 2003: 379, as the date of the sale to the dealer. Documents in the Duveen Brothers Records, however, indicate representatives of the dealer first saw the painting in November 1929, and did not finalize the purchase until April 1930. See reel 115, box 260, folder 8, Duveen Brothers Records, accession no. 960015, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (copies in NGA curatorial files). [3] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on poplar panel
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