Gallery Label This beautifully preserved and delicately painted picture shows the Virgin bestowing the scapular—a small piece of cloth symbolic of the yoke of Christ—on a saint, Simon Stock, the English Carmelite who had a vision of this occurrence. Two donors kneel in the left middle distance together with Saint Anthony of Padua. Among the other saints can be recognized Clare and Catherine of Siena, Dominic (with a dog holding a candle in his mouth), Nicholas of Tolentino (a sunburst on his habit), Peter Martyr (with a knife in his head), Francis (preaching on the shore to birds), and Raymond of Peñaforte (sailing across the sea with a banner as a sail). The picture seems to date from about 1609, when the feast of the scapular was established.
Provenance Odoardo Zanchini, Bologna (until d. 1710); his son, Alamanno Zanchini, Bologna (1710–d. 1733; inv., 1733, no. 58); his brother, Giovan Battista Zanchini, Bologna (1733–d. 1737); his daughter, Angelica Teresa Zanchini Zambeccari, Bologna (1737–d. 1782; inv., 1783, no. 38); [Julius Weitzner, London, in 1959]; Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ganz, New York (by 1962–71; sold to Harris); Morton B. and Mary Jane Harris, New York (1971–his d. 1995); Mary Jane Harris, New York (1995–2001)
Exhibition History New York. Finch College Museum of Art. "Baroque Painters of Bologna and Neighboring Cities," February 27–April 8, 1962, no. 2 (as "Madonna della Cintola," lent by Paul H. Ganz).
Art Museum, Princeton University. "Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections," April 27–September 7, 1980, no. 44 (as "The Virgin Bestowing a Scapular upon a Saint," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Morton B. Harris).
Modena. chiesa del Voto e Galleria Estense. "Ludovico Lana: l'amorevole maniera e la pittura emiliana del primo Seicento," March 29–June 15, 2003, no. 34 (as "Madonna del Carmine e Ordini mendicanti").
References Inventory of Alamanno Zanchini . October 31, 1733, no. 58 [Archivio di Stato, Bologna; published in Gian Piero Cammarota, "Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna: una raccolta di fonti." Vol. 3: "La collezione Zambeccari," 2001, p. 165], as "La B.V. del Carmine con altre figure £180," without attribution.Inventory of Angelica Teresa Zanchini Zambeccari . February 17, 1783, no. 38 [Archivio di Stato, Bologna; published in Gian Piero Cammarota, "Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna: una raccolta di fonti." Vol. 3: "La collezione Zambeccari," 2001, p. 203], as "Un quadro per traverso della grandezza del descritto [i.e., alto piedi 2:1/2, largo piedi 3:4] rapresenta la B.V. del Carmine che da l'Abbitino a varj Religiosi con persone astanti bel quadro che pare del Scarsellini cornice dorata £225".Paragone 117 (September 1959), p. 47, fig. 33, states that Longhi has ascribed the picture to Scarsellino and supports this attribution; calls it the "Apparition of the Madonna to the Founders of the Orders" and dates it to the end of the sixteenth century.Baroque Painters of Bologna and Neighboring Cities . Exh. cat., Finch College Museum of Art. New York, 1962, unpaginated, no. 2, calls it "Madonna della Cintola" and identifies the subject as Saint Thomas receiving a girdle from the Virgin in the company of fifteen other saints.Lo Scarsellino . Milan, 1964, pp. 18, 36, no. 104, fig. 32b, dates it about 1600, noting that the handling of the landscape and light may reflect Scarsellino's contact with northern artists active in Venice in the 1590s.Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections . Exh. cat., Art Museum, Princeton University. Princeton, 1980, pp. 111–12, no. 44, ill., identifies the subject as the Virgin bestowing a scapular on an unidentified saint in the presence of two donors and thirteen monastic saints; notes the scapular is of the third order and suggests it may represent the foundation of a tertiary monastic order; dates the work about 1600–1610.in Ludovico Lana: l'amorevole maniera e la pittura emiliana del primo Seicento . Exh. cat., chiesa del Voto e Galleria Estense, Modena. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2003, pp. 126–27, no. 34, ill. (color).Il Carrobbio 34 (2008), pp. 126, 129, 132 nn. 36–37, ill. p. 123 (color), identifies this work with one included in the 1733 inventory of Alamanno Zanchini, son of the collector Odoardo Zanchini, and the 1783 inventory of Angelica Teresa Zanchini Zambeccari [see Refs. Zanchini 1733 and Zanchini Zambeccari 1783]; apparently in error lists this work as no. 57 in Alamanno Zanchini's inventory [see Gian Piero Cammarota, "Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna: una raccolta di fonti." Vol. 3: "La collezione Zambeccari," 2001, p. 165, where this work is listed as no. 58].
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