Piero di Cosimo
Florentine, 1462 - 1521
The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot,
c. 1490
oil on panel, 184.2 x 188.6 cm (72 1/2 x 74 1/4 in.)
Samuel H. Kress Collection
1939.1.361
This subject is unusual as the central focus of an altarpiece.
Normally the meeting of the cousins Mary and Elizabeth, the first pregnant
with Jesus and the second bearing John the Baptist,
was reserved for the small narrative scenes that decorate the base of altarpieces.
Its prominence here must have been at the request of the Capponi
family, who commissioned this work for the altar of a family chapel in Florence.
On the right is Anthony Abbot, venerated as a healing saint. Opposite
him sits Nicholas of Bari. The three gold balls at his feet refer to
the legend that Nicholas rescued three young girls from prostitution by
providing them with dowries, a tale that accounts for his
children's welfare (and his evolution as Santa Claus). Small scenes in the background
expand upon this emphasis on childhood through episodes from the infancy of
Christ: a tiny Annunciation appears on a church facade in the right distance,
a scene of the Nativity is to the left, and the Massacre of Innocents
takes place in the middle right. It has been suggested
that these subjects were selected to
celebrate the recent birth of two male Capponi
children and, more generally, to offer a prayer for protection of the family
line.
Provenance
Commissioned 1489/1490 for the Cappella Capponi
of San Niccolò, Santo Spirito, Florence; moved 1713
to the Villa Capponi a Legnaia, near Florence. The Hon. Mrs.
Frederick West, Chirk Castle, Clwyd, Wales, by c. 1850; by inheritance
to Frederick Richard West [d. 1872], Ruthin Castle, Clwyd, Wales; by inheritance
to Colonel William Cornwallis-West [later Lord Lascelles], Newland Manor, Hampshire,
by at least 1891. (Thomas Agnew & Sons, London); (Duveen Brothers, Inc.,
New York), by 1933; sold 1937 to the Samuel
H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1939 to
NGA.
Exhibition History
1891
Old Masters Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 1891, no. 154.
1933
Italian Paintings of the XIV to XVI Century, Detroit Institute of Art,
1933, no. 40.
1939
Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800,
New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 284, repro.
By> entro by tomorrow
by inheritance > per/in eredità
sold 1937 >to venduto a
gift 1939 > to > donato a
tiny > piccolissima