The painting was identified by Horne (1915) with a picture described in the 1502 inventory of Francesco del Pugliese as "unaltro quadro dipintouj eltransito di sa[n] girolamo dimano didecto sandro" (another work in which is shown the death of Saint Jerome by the hand of Sandro [Botticelli] ). Its fame may be gauged by the citations in two early guidebooks to Florence. The Anonimo Magliabecchiano (Gaddiano 1542–56) lists it among Botticelli’s "small, extremely beautiful works." The picture is, indeed, among the most exquisite of the artist’s small devotional paintings. It has been dated as early as about 1490 but is more frequently placed between 1495 and 1500 (see, most recently, Cecchi 2005 and Zöllner 2005). Horne (1915) gives the most thorough account of the iconography and detailed information on Pugliese, a wealthy wool merchant and a notable patron of the arts. (He may have commissioned Piero di Cosimo’s paintings of primitive man in The Met: 75.7.1, 75.7.2.) Pugliese was a staunch supporter of Savonarola and an opponent of the Medici (he was in the convent of San Marco the night Savonarola was arrested and in 1513 was exiled for having referred to Lorenzo de’ Medici as "il magnifico merda"). The subject of the picture has been related to Pugliese’s deep religious convictions (the most popular image of Saint Jerome in the fifteenth century shows him either as a scholar in his study or as an ascetic in the wilderness).

The subject is based on a letter addressed to Pope Damasus (366–384) describing Jerome’s death in 420 A.D. In the fifteenth century the letter was ascribed to Eusebius of Caesarea, but it dates, instead, from the twelfth century (the Pseudo-Eusebius of Cremona). Jerome is shown in his hermit’s cell near Bethlehem, kneeling in front of a bed covered with a coarse coverlet. On the back wall of the wattle cell hang palm branches, a crucifix, and a cardinal’s hat (although a doctor of the church, Jerome was not, in fact, a cardinal but was often shown as one). The arrangement is suggestive of a church altar. The saint receives communion from fellow monks, the two youngest of whom serve as acolytes holding candles. He is supported by another monk. All are tonsured. "And as soon as the priest who held the eucharist came near to him, the glorious man, with our aid, raised himself on his knees, and lifted his head, and with many tears and sighs, beating his breast many times, he said: 'Thou art my God and my Lord, who suffered Death and the Passion for me, and none other!’" [. . . And when the saint had made an end of these words, he] "received the most holy body of Christ, and cast himself again upon the ground, with his hands crossed upon his breast, singing the canticle of Simeon, the prophet, ‘Nunc dimittis servum tuum’" (Horne 1908).

Since 1989 the picture has been displayed in an exceptionally fine Florentine frame of the period almost certainly carved in the workshop of Giuliano da Maiano (it should be compared to the frame of a terracotta relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; see John Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1964, vol. 1, pp. 161–62, no. 136, fig. 158). The painting in the lunette of the frame shows the Trinity flanked by angels and has been attributed by Everett Fahy to Bartolomeo di Giovanni. Both Giuliano da Maiano and Bartolomeo di Giovanni are known to have worked with Botticelli; the latter made a copy of this picture (Galleria Pallavicini, Rome). Another fine copy, evidently from Botticelli’s workshop, was formerly in the Balbi collection, Genoa, and is now in a private collection in New York. A contemporary drawing after this composition is in the Robert Lehman Collection (The Met, 1975.1.280).

Keith Christiansen 2011

Francesco di Filippo del Pugliese, Florence (by 1502–d. 1519); Niccolò di Piero del Pugliese, Florence (1519–before 1553); marchese Gino Capponi, Palazzo Capponi, Florence (by 1841–d. 1876; as by Castagno); his daughter, marchesa Farinola, Palazzo Capponi, Florence (1876–1912); [Duveen, New York, 1912]; Benjamin Altman, New York (1912–d. 1913)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art Treasures of the Metropolitan," November 7, 1952–September 7, 1953, no. 88.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971, no. 185.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," June 15–August 15, 1971, no catalogue.

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT, BY TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.

Francesco di Filippo del Pugliese. Will of Francesco del Pugliese. February 28, 1502 [Archivio di Stato, Florence, Rogiti di Ser Lorenzo di Zanobi Violi, Protocollo dal 14 Giugno, 1500, al 20 Maryo, 1503–4. Segnato, V. 356; published in Horne 1915, Burlington Magazine], lists it as by Botticelli.

Antonio Billi. Il libro. [ca. 1516–30], unpaginated [two copies in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze: MS. Magl. XIII, 89 and MS. Magl. XXV, 636; published in Carl Frey, ed., "Il libro di Antonio Billi," Berlin, 1892, p. 29], mentions a picture of Saint Jerome among "quadri di cose pichole" by Botticelli.

Anonimo Gaddiano. Manuscript. [ca. 1542–56], fol. 85 recto [Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, MS. Magl. XVII, 17; published in Carl Frey, ed., "Il codice Magliabechiano," Berlin, 1892, p. 105], mentions it.

Federigo Fantozzi. Nuova guida ovvero descrizione storico, artistico, critica della città e contorni di Firenze. Florence, 1842, p. 399, mentions it as a work by Castagno.

Otto Mündler. Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 2 (1867), p. 279, recognizes it as probably the original of a copy in the Balbi collection, Genoa, but ascribes it to Filippino Lippi.

Jacob Burckhardt. Der Cicerone: Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens. Ed. A. von Zahn. Vol. 3, Malerei. 3rd ed. Leipzig, 1874, p. 878, calls it probably the original of the copy in the Balbi collection, there ascribed to Filippino Lippi.

Giovanni Morelli. Letter to Niccolò Antinori. July 24, 1879 [published in G. Agosti, "Giovanni Morelli corrispondente di Niccolò Antinori," in Studi e ricerche di collezionismo e museografia Firenze 1820–1920, Pisa, 1985, pp. 72–73], lists it as by Botticelli among works that Giulia Ridolfi is interested in acquiring, giving the price as 10,000 lire.

Ivan Lermolieff [Giovanni Morelli]. Kunstkritische Studien über italienische Malerei. Vol. 1, Die Galerien Borghese und Doria Panfili in Rom. Leipzig, 1890, p. 146 n. 1, calls it the original of the Balbi copy and ascribes it to Botticelli.

Giovanni Morelli. Letter. 1891 [published in "Italienische Malerei der Renaissance im Briefwechsel von Giovanni Morelli und Jean Paul Richter," 1960, p. 580], attributes it to Botticelli.

Hermann Ulmann. Sandro Botticelli. Munich, [1893?], p. 72, attributes it to Botticelli and dates it to the time of the Saint Augustine in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (1485–95).

Count Plunkett. Sandro Botticelli. London, 1900, pp. 59–60, 116, calls it a work from the school of Botticelli.

A. Streeter. Botticelli. London, 1903, p. 157, lists it as a work of Botticelli.

Bernhard Berenson. The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. London, 1903, vol. 1, p. 62, attributes it to Botticelli.

Julia Cartwright. The Life and Art of Sandro Botticelli. London, 1904, pp. 136–37, 190, lists it as a work of Botticelli and notes that critics have identified it with the painting mentioned by Antonio Billi [see Ref. 1516–30] and Anonimo Gaddiano [see Ref. 1542–56].

Roger Fry. Letter to Helen Fry. January 11, 1905 [published in Ref. Sutton 1972, vol. 1, letter no. 149, p. 230], describes a meeting with J. P. Morgan and states "he wants to buy Farinola's Botticelli".

Charles Diehl. Botticelli. Paris, [1906], p. 165, lists it as a work by Botticelli.

Herbert P. Horne. Alessandro Filipepi commonly called Sandro Botticelli, Painter of Florence. London, 1908, pp. 174–77, ill., attributes it to Botticelli and refers to "an apocryphal letter of the Blessed Eusebius," first printed in Florence in 1490, as the source of the subject.

Bernhard Berenson. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd ed. New York, 1909, p. 117, attributes it to Botticelli.

Carlo Gamba in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. Vol. 4, Leipzig, 1910, p. 419, lists it as a late work by Botticelli.

Langton Douglas, ed. A History of Painting in Italy: Umbria, Florence and Siena from the Second to the Sixteenth Century.. By Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. Vol. 4, Florentine Masters of the Fifteenth Century. London, 1911, p. 270 n. 4, attributes it to Botticelli and calls it the original of the copies in the Balbi collection, Genoa, and Abdy collection, Paris (later Benson collection, London).

Adolfo Venturi. Storia dell'arte italiana. Vol. 7, part 1, La pittura del quattrocento. Milan, 1911, p. 642 n. 1, assigns it to Botticelli's latest period.

Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in Italy: Umbria, Florence and Siena from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. Ed. Langton Douglas. Vol. 4, Florentine Masters of the Fifteenth Century. London, 1911, p. 290, call it a replica of the Balbi version, attributed to Filippino Lippi.

Mary Logan Berenson. Draft of a letter to Louis Duveen. March 15, 1912 [published in "Mary Berenson: A Self-Portrait from her Letters & Diaries," ed. B. Strachey and J. Samuels, New York, 1983, p. 177], states that at her husband's request she went to see the picture at Volpi's, where she was told that the owner would not consider anything less than 200,000 francs.

Mary Logan Berenson. Letter to her sister, Alys Russell. March 19, 1912 [published in "Mary Berenson: A Self-Portrait from her Letters & Diaries," ed. B. Strachey and J. Samuels, New York, 1983, p. 177], writes that she has "just had a wire buying a small Botticelli for £8400 (sterling)," probably this painting.

Bernard Berenson. Letter to Duveen. March 28, 1912, attributes it to Botticelli.

M[aurice]. W. B[rockwell]. "Famous Botticelli for America: What the Nation Lost." Morning Post (December 28, 1912) [reprinted in Ref. Horne 1986], reports that it was offered for sale to the National Gallery, London, but rejected [see Ref. Horne 1986].

Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16, South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson. London, 1914, p. 48, under no. 25.

Herbert P. Horne. "The Last Communion of Saint Jerome by Sandro Botticelli." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 10 (March 1915), pp. 52, 54–56, ill. p. 39 (cover), gives an extensive account of the Pugliese family, identifying the patron for whom Botticelli painted this picture as Francesco del Pugliese.

Herbert P. Horne. "Botticelli's "Last Communion of S. Jerome"." Burlington Magazine 28 (November 1915), pp. 45–46, ill. p. 44, publishes Pugliese's will of 1502 that bequeaths the picture to the church of Sant' Andrea da Sommaia; notes that in 1519 this will was replaced by another that makes no mention of the work.

Herbert P. Horne. "The Last Communion of Saint Jerome by Sandro Botticelli." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 10 (April 1915), pp. 72–75, ill. (detail), details the history of the Pugliese family in the fifteenth century.

Herbert P. Horne. "The Last Communion of Saint Jerome by Sandro Botticelli." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 10 (May 1915), pp. 101–5, ill. (detail), discusses the life of Francesco del Pugliese.

Wilhelm von Bode. Sandro Botticelli. Berlin, 1921, pp. 157–58, ill. p. 156, attributes it to Botticelli and considers it the original of the Balbi and ex-Abdy copies.

François Monod. "La galerie Altman au Metropolitan Museum de New-York (1er article)." Gazette des beaux-arts, 5th ser., 8 (September–October 1923), pp. 183–84, ill. p. 185, attributes it to Botticelli and dates it between 1490 and 1502.

Yukio Yashiro. Sandro Botticelli. London, 1925, vol. 1, pp. 186, 210–11, 230, 243; vol. 3, pl. CCXXXIX, calls it a very late work by Botticelli, dating it 1498.

Adolfo Venturi. Botticelli. Paris, 1926, pp. 55, 98, pl. CXXVII, dates it to about the time of the portrait of Lorenzo Lorenzano in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Johnson Collection).

Wilhelm von Bode. Botticelli: des Meisters Werke. Berlin, 1926, ill. p. 73, attributes it to Botticelli and dates it about 1490.

Handbook of the Benjamin Altman Collection. 2nd ed. New York, 1928, pp. 53–55, no. 26, ill.

Raimond van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 12, The Renaissance Painters of Florence in the 15th Century: The Third Generation. The Hague, 1931, p. 160, fig. 98, ascribes it to Botticelli and dates it slightly later than the Uffizi Saint Augustine.

Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 104.

Lionello Venturi. Italian Paintings in America. Vol. 2, Fifteenth Century Renaissance. New York, 1933, unpaginated, pl. 254, ascribes it to Botticelli and dates it about 1500.

Hans Tietze. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935, p. 327, pl. 52 [English ed., "Masterpieces of European Painting in America," New York, 1939, p. 311, pl. 52], attributes it to Botticelli and dates it about 1490.

Alfred Scharf. Filippino Lippi. Vienna, 1935, p. 117, under no. 142, calls it a replica of the Balbi painting, which he lists as a work by Filippino Lippi.

Richard Offner. Lecture. March 9, 1935, attributes it to Botticelli.

Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 90.

Carlo Gamba. Botticelli. Milan, [1936], p. 169, fig. 148 [French ed., (1937), pp. 177–78, fig. 148], dates it in the first half of the 1490s and hesitantly accepts it as the one mentioned in Pugliese's will [see Ref. 1502]; mentions the picture of Saint Jerome referred to by the Anonimo Gaddiano [see Ref. 1542–56], notes that another such work by an anonymous artist was in the collection of Lorenzo de' Medici, and states that several copies of the composition exist.

Lionello Venturi. Botticelli. New York, 1937, ill. p. 22, dates it about 1490.

Jacques Mesnil. Botticelli. Paris, 1938, pp. 158–59, pl. LXXXVII, accepts it as the one mentioned in Pugliese's will.

Alan Burroughs. Art Criticism from a Laboratory. Boston, 1938, p. 81.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 46–47, ill.

Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941, unpaginated, no. 104, ill., dates it about 1490-1500.

Sergio Bettini. Botticelli. Bergamo, 1942, pp. 40, 45, pl. 142 A, attributes it to Botticelli and tentatively dates it about 1503.

Art Treasures of the Metropolitan: A Selection from the European and Asiatic Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1952, p. 225, no. 88, colorpl. 88.

George Kaftal. Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting. Florence, 1952, col. 529, fig. 607, attributes it to Botticelli.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 11.

Giulio Carlo Argan. Botticelli. New York, 1957, p. 124, ill. p. 118 (color), attributes it to Botticelli, dating it about 1490.

Roberto Salvini. Tutta la pittura del Botticelli. Milan, 1958, vol. 2, p. 53, pl. 69, attributes it to Botticelli, dating it shortly after 1490.

Federico Zeri. La Galleria Pallavicini in Roma, catalogo dei dipinti. Florence, 1959, pp. 33–34, under no. 18, publishes a copy by Bartolomeo di Giovanni, identifying the MMA picture as the one painted by Botticelli for Francesco del Pugliese.

Bernard Berenson. I disegni dei pittori fiorentini. Milan, 1961, vol. 2, p. 111, under no. 580 A, vol. 3, fig. 200, considers a Lehman drawing a contemporary copy after our picture.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School. London, 1963, vol. 1, p. 37; vol. 2, pl. 1087.

Franco Russoli. "La Galleria Pallavicini a Roma." Tesori d'arte delle grandi famiglie. Ed. Douglas Cooper. Milan, 1966, p. 142.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School. New York, 1971, pp. 159–63, ill., list four roughly contemporary copies of the composition and a drawing after it in the Robert Lehman Collection, indicating that the work, though made for a private patron, was well known.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 34, 408, 606.

Denys Sutton, ed. Letters of Roger Fry. New York, 1972, vol. 1, p. 230 n. 2 to letter 149 (January 11, 1905).

Bernard Berenson. Looking at Pictures with Bernard Berenson. Ed. Hanna Kiel. New York, 1974, pp. 186–87, ill., Kiel states that it is mentioned in Pugliese's "final testament of 1519" [but see Ref. Horne 1915, Burlington Magazine], and dates it not earlier than 1490, when Buonacorsi's "Life of Saint Jerome" was published.

Roberta Jeanne Marie Olson. "Studies in the Later Works of Sandro Botticelli." PhD diss., Princeton University, 1975, vol. 1, pp. 60–61, 79 n. 22, p. 80 n. 29, pp. 322, 331–32, 372 n. 113, p. 375 n. 137, pp. 399–402, 430–31, 450–51 nn. 22, 23; vol. 2, fig. 34, dates it to about 1491–92, suggesting that the color scheme looks back to Fra Angelico and that the painting may show the influence of contemporary Florentine woodcuts; supplies a list of copies and variations.

Federico Zeri. Italian Paintings in the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore, 1976, vol. 1, p. 102, under no. 65, mentions it as the source for the Bartolomeo di Giovanni predella panel in the Walters Art Museum (37.428 A), and dates it 1490–95.

Edward Fowles. Memories of Duveen Brothers. London, 1976, pp. 66, 78.

Martin Kemp. "Botticelli's Glasgow 'Annunciation': Patterns of Instability." Burlington Magazine 119 (March 1977), p. 183, lists it among late works.

L. D. Ettlinger and Helen S. Ettlinger. Botticelli. New York, 1977, pp. 89–90, fig. 58.

Alison Luchs. Cestello, a Cistercian Church of the Florentine Renaissance. PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University. New York, 1977, p. 67.

Ronald Lightbown. Sandro Botticelli. Berkeley, 1978, vol. 1, pp. 120–22, pl. 45; vol. 2, pp. 86–87, no. B78, considers it identical with the picture of Saint Jerome owned by Francesco del Pugliese in 1503, notes that its literary source was an epistle of Eusebius, and dates it about 1494–95.

Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, p. 237, fig. 422.

Everett Fahy. "Babbott's Choices." Apollo, n.s., 115 (April 1982), p. 238.

Keith Christiansen. "Early Renaissance Narrative Painting in Italy." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 41 (Fall 1983), pp. 12–14, fig. 8 (color, overall and detail), dates it probably 1495.

C[hristopher]. L[loyd]. Piero di Cosimo's The Forest Fire. Oxford, 1984, unpaginated, pl. 34.

Caterina Caneva in Herbert P. Horne. Alessandro Filipepi commonly called Sandro Botticelli, Painter of Florence. reprint of 1908 ed. Florence, 1986, vol. 1, pp. 402–4, reprints Ref. Brockwell 1912 with Horne's annotations.

Colin Simpson. Artful Partners: Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen. New York, 1986, pp. 135–37, 293 [British ed., "The Partnership: The Secret Association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen," London, 1987].

Nicoletta Pons. Botticelli: catalogo completo. Milan, 1989, p. 86, no. 118, ill.

Ronald Lightbown. Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work. New York, 1989, pp. 221, 224, 226, 228–29, colorpl. 92.

Milton Esterow. "Masterpiece Theater." Art News 89 (Summer 1990), pp. 135–36, ill.

Anna Forlani Tempesti. The Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 5, Italian Fifteenth- to Seventeenth-Century Drawings. New York, 1991, pp. 230–32, fig. 78.1, dates it to "the Savonarolan phase of the artist's later years," between 1491 and 1503, and calls the Lehman drawing (MMA 1975.1.280) a contemporary copy.

Richard Stapleford. "Vasari and Botticelli." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 39 (1995), pp. 399, 401, 402–3 n. 14, p. 408, suggest that Vasari omitted it from his biography of Botticelli because he had not seen it.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 24, ill.

Alessandro Cecchi in L'officina della maniera: Varietà e fierezza nell'arte fiorentina del Cinquecento fra le due repubbliche 1494–1530. Ed. Alessandro Cecchi and Antonio Natali. Exh. cat., Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Venice, 1996, p. 8.

Maria Grazia Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto. "I dipinti di palazzo Medici nell'inventario di Simone di Stagio delle Pozze: problemi di committenza e di arredo." La Toscana al tempo di Lorenzo Il Magnifico: politica, economia, cultura, arte, convegno di studi promosso dalle Università di Firenze, Pisa e Siena. Pisa, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 138–39, pl. 85, identifies it with a picture listed in the 1492 Medici inventory as "San Girolamo quando si comunica," rather than with the one mentioned in Pugliese's will, though acknowledges that Botticelli could have made at least two versions of the subject.

Old Master Pictures. Christie's, London. April 25, 2001, p. 138, under no. 106, cites Everett Fahy for observing that it is based on the same cartoon as the version formerly in the Benson and Abdy collections.

David G. Wilkins. "Opening the Doors to Devotion: Trecento Triptychs and Suggestions Concerning Images and Domestic Practice in Florence." Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Ed. Victor M. Schmidt. Washington, 2002, pp. 383, 392 n. 73.

Meryle Secrest. Duveen: A Life in Art. New York, 2004, pp. 114, 416.

Alessandro Cecchi. Botticelli. Milan, 2005, pp. 318, 329, 363 n. 81, ill. p. 330 (color), dates it probably 1496–97 and believes it was likely commissioned by Francesco di Filippo Pugliese.

Frank Zöllner. Sandro Botticelli. Munich, 2005, pp. 172, 175, 262–63, no. 80, ill. (color), dates it about 1495–1500 based on similarities in the handling of the drapery to that in the Transfiguration triptych (Galleria Pallavicini, Rome) of about 1500.

Davide Gasparotto in Il tondo di Botticelli a Piacenza. Ed. Davide Gasparotto and Antonella Gigli. Milan, 2006, pp. 15–16, fig. 1 (color).

Hans Körner. Botticelli. Cologne, 2006, pp. 368, 402 nn. 899–900, fig. 297, ill. p. 192 (color).

Dennis Geronimus. Piero di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange. New Haven, 2006, p. 316 n. 13.

Andrea Bayer in Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Ed. Andrea Bayer. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2008, p. 303.

Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 271, no. 158, ill. pp. 165, 271 (color).

Lionello Venturi. Botticelli. London, 2016, p. 44, colorpl. 93.

Annette Hojer in Tiepolo: Der beste Maler Venedigs. Exh. cat., Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Dresden, 2019, p. 106 n. 3.

Holland Cotter. "The Met Casts New Light on Hit Works and History." New York Times (December 25, 2020), p. C1 [online ed., "The Met Casts New Light on its Greatest Hits and History," December 24, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/arts/design/metropolitan-museum-european-paintings-skylights.html].

Christopher Daly. "A Botticelli Fragment in Mexico City." Burlington Magazine 167 (September 2025), p. 871, fig. 13 (color).

The frame is from Florence and dates to about 1480–1500 (see figs. 2–4 above). This small, exquisite tabernacle frame is made of poplar and is water gilded and distinctively carved. The pearl-and-rosette ornament is continued on the arch above the lunette painting. Rosettes with palmettes adorn its crest and sides. The base is carved depicting a water-leaf ornament while the cornice is an acanthus. Further description as well as an attribution to the carver, Giuliano da Majano (1432–1490), can be found in Italian Renaissance Frames (exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990, p. 43, no. 11). The frame was put on the picture in 1989.

Timothy Newbery with Cynthia Moyer 2015; further information on this frame can be found in the Department of European Paintings files

The frame is catalogued separately: 1989.132.

This work may not be lent, by terms of its acquisition by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.