Vittore Crivelli was the younger, less talented brother of Carlo Crivelli and, like him, worked primarily in the region of the Marches in Italy. This work was the center of a multi-panel altarpiece. The donor, his hands clasped in prayer, may be Ludovico Vinci, a noble of the town of Fermo. He is known to have commissioned an altarpiece from the artist in 1481 for his chapel in the church of San Martino in Varano.
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Title:Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels and a Donor
Artist:Vittore Crivelli (Italian, Venice, active by 1465–died 1501/2 Fermo)
Date:1481?
Medium:Tempera on wood, gold ground
Dimensions:Overall 54 x 25 3/4 in. (137.2 x 65.4 cm); painted surface 52 x 24 1/4 in. (132.1 x 61.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of George Blumenthal, 1941
Object Number:41.100.32
[Pietro Vallati, Rome, in 1858, as by Vittore Crivelli]; marquis du Blaisel, Paris (until d. 1870; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 9, 1873, no. 13, as by Crivelli, for Fr 1,909); Jean Dollfus, Paris (by 1885–d. 1911; his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, April 1–12, 1912, no. 49, as by Vittore Crivelli, for Fr 70,000 to Seligmann); [Jacques Seligmann, Paris, from 1912; sold to Blumenthal]; George Blumenthal, New York (by 1923–41; cat., vol. 1, 1926, pl. XLII)
Paris. Musée du Louvre. "Tableaux, statues et objets d'art au profit de l'œuvre des orphelins d'Alsace-Lorraine," 1885, no. 92 (as by Carlo Crivelli, lent by M. Dollfus).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Loan Exhibition of the Arts of the Italian Renaissance," May 7–September 9, 1923, no. 38 (as by Carlo Crivelli, lent by George and Florence Blumenthal).
New York. The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Christmas Exhibition," November 27, 1945–March 31, 1946, no catalogue.
Minneapolis. University Gallery, University of Minnesota. "Renaissance and Baroque Painting," June 25–July 26, 1952, no catalogue?
Westport, Conn. Westport Community Art Association. February 12–24, 1955, no catalogue?
Otto Mündler. Journal entry. May 9–10, 1858, p. 80r [published in Carol Togneri Dowd, ed. "The Travel Diaries of Otto Mündler, 1855–1858," Walpole Society 51 (1985), p. 233], notes seeing this picture, which he attributes to Vittore Crivelli, at the dealer Pietro Vallati in Rome; compares it with a work seen a few days earlier in the Palazzo Vinci, Fermo.
Catalogue de tableaux anciens & modernes . . . provenant de la succession de M. le Marquis du Blaisel. Hôtel Drouot, Paris. May 9–10, 1873, p. 7, no. 13, calls it the central panel of a triptych whose wings are in the National Gallery, London, and the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.
Henri Frantz. "La curiosité: collections Jean Dollfus (tableaux anciens, objets d'art)." L'art décoratif 27 (May 5, 1912), p. 290, ill.
Stella Rubinstein-Bloch. Catalogue of the Collection of George and Florence Blumenthal. Vol. 1, Paintings—Early Schools. Paris, 1926, unpaginated, pl. XLII, attributes it to Vittore Crivelli, dates it about 1490–95, and compares it with several other works by Vittore.
Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 164, lists it as by Vittore.
Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 141.
Raimond van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 18, The Renaissance Painters of Venice. The Hague, 1936, p. 84 n. 1.
Hildegard Schneider. "On the Pomegranate." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 4 (December 1945), p. 117, ill.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 24.
Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. London, 1957, vol. 1, p. 72.
Federico Zeri. "Appunti nell'Ermitage e nel Museo Pusckin." Bollettino d'arte 46 (July–September 1961), p. 235, fig. 28 [reprinted in Federico Zeri, "Giorno per giorno nella pittura," (vol. 3), Turin, 1992, p. 176, fig. 284], calls it closely related to the Wilstach polyptych of 1481 (Philadelphia Museum of Art; made for the church of San Francesco, Fermo), and to Madonnas in the Szépmüvészeti Museum, Budapest, and formerly in the Benson collection (now MMA, 1982.60.6).
Germain Seligman. Merchants of Art: 1880–1960, Eighty Years of Professional Collecting. New York, 1961, p. 120.
Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Unpublished manuscript for catalogue of Venetian paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1967, call it the central panel of a large altarpiece of which no other parts are known today, and date it between 1480 and 1485.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 60, 329, 536, 608.
Sandra di Provvido. La pittura di Vittore Crivelli. L'Aquila, 1972, pp. 100, 102, pl. 20.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 75, ill.
Sandra di Provvido inVittore Crivelli e la pittura del suo tempo nel Fermano. Ed. Stefano Papetti. Milan, 1997, pp. 207–8, 211, no. 12, ill. p. 207 and colorpl. XIV, tentatively connects it with a work described by conte Eufemio Vinci, suggesting that the figure of the donor may represent Ludovico Vinci and that the picture may come from the church of San Martino in Varano, Fermo.
Costanza Costanzi inLe Marche disperse: repertorio di opere d'arte dalle Marche al mondo. Ed. Costanza Costanzi. Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2005, p. 148, no. 128, ill.
The picture was originally the central panel of a triptych or polyptych.
Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, Florence ca. 1406–1469 Spoleto)
ca. 1440
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