Provenance

Professor Luigi Grassi

Italian, 1858 - 1937

Explore selected works

See all 17 works of art
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Walnut Bench with Balustraded Back

Sienese 16th Century · 16th century · carved, gilded, and polychromed walnut and oak ·  Accession ID  1942.9.385

Sienese 16th Century, Walnut Bench with Balustraded Back, 16th century, carved, gilded, and polychromed walnut and oak, Widener Collection, 1942.9.386

Walnut Bench with Balustraded Back

Sienese 16th Century · 16th century · carved, gilded, and polychromed walnut and oak ·  Accession ID  1942.9.386

Shown from the chest up, a light-skinned, blond young woman wearing a gold and red gown and pearls looks off to our left in this vertical portrait painting. Her face and body both angle to our left, and she gazes in that direction with brown eyes under faint brows. She has smooth skin, a long, straight nose, and her closed, light pink lips curl up slightly at the corners. Long, cottony, light blond hair falls over her ears and flows down beyond her shoulders. At the back of her head, she wears a caramel-brown cap decorated with black, web-like lines and a row of pearls along the front edge. Her bodice is the same golden brown color, with the black linework in a leaf and floral pattern. The low neckline runs straight across her chest, and swaths of scarlet-red fabric wrap over her shoulders to meet in a wide V. Clusters of three tiny pearls line the squared edge of her neckline. A double-stranded pearl necklace has a red gemstone pendant that hangs at the base of her neck. A third, single strand of pearls hangs low over her chest, holding a pendant with a magenta-pink stone flanked by more pearls. A landscape stretches into the distance behind her. Dark green, grassy fields dotted with trees leads back to a winding body of water, over her shoulder to our right. Stone walls enclose at least two clusters of buildings, including several towers, far back along the banks. The light blue sky is tinged with petal pink near the horizon, over mountains painted blue in the hazy distance. An ivory-white band spans the bottom edge of the portrait, and is inscribed, “QVANTVM HOMINI FAS EST MIRA LICET ASSEQVAR ARTE. NIL AGO: MORTALIS EMVLOR ARTE DEOS.” The band is flanked by a triangle to each side; the one to our left has the letters “CP” or “OP,” and the one to our right reads “NER” with the N and E conjoined. The painting has an ornately carved, brown wooden frame. A rope design divides the border into alternating squares and rectangles. Each rectangular box has a pair of carved eagle heads flanking an orb, while a flame-like shape is in each of the smaller square boxes. The boxes and trim have slate-blue backgrounds, and gold edging.
Neroccio de' Landi, Portrait of a Lady, c. 1485, tempera on pine panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.47

Portrait of a Lady

Neroccio de' Landi · c. 1485 · tempera on pine panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.47

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High Armchair with Bronze Finials

Venetian 16th Century · 16th century · poplar, pine, cast brass, and upholstery ·  Accession ID  1942.9.384

Venetian 16th Century, Square Table with Legs Carved as Winged Figures, 16th century, walnut, pine, maple, and cast bronze, Widener Collection, 1942.9.387

Square Table with Legs Carved as Winged Figures

Venetian 16th Century · 16th century · walnut, pine, maple, and cast bronze ·  Accession ID  1942.9.387

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High Armchair with Bronze Finials

Venetian 16th Century · 16th century · poplar, pine, cast brass, and upholstery ·  Accession ID  1942.9.383

Nine people are gathered in a landscape around the gaunt body of a young man being carried on a cloth in the lower half of this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin tinged with yellow, and all but one have shiny gold halos. The space is framed to the right by a stone-gray structure with a squared opening and, to the left, with a brown, rocky outcropping. Tall cypress trees and sage-green vegetation grow up and over the structure to our right. The bearded young man, Jesus, is laid out horizontally with his feet to our left, on a flax-yellow cloth carried by two elderly men. He is nude except for a white cloth across his hips, and there are tiny red slashes on the hand and foot we can see, and over his right ribs, farther from us. Just beyond the body, a woman draped in a marine-blue robe bends to gaze at Jesus’s face while being supported by two other women. A young, cleanshaven man in a coral-pink robe over a steel-gray garment stands by them, on our left, with his head lowered and hands clasped. On our side of the body are two women with their backs to us. The woman on the left kneels at Jesus’s corpse with her head bent as she wipes his feet. The woman on the right sits on the ground with her robe drawn over her head, and she covers her face with her hands. On the ground between them, a hammer, the ring of thorns with three arrows extending from it, and a nail puller lie on an white cloth. The only person without a halo is a bearded man standing to our right, closest to the opening in the structure. He wears a red robe and cap draped with a white cowl. The ground beneath the group is carpeted with pine-green grass, and a sprinkling of white dots suggests small flowers. A palm tree stands just outside a tall, narrow wooden gate beyond the group. The gate opens onto a landscape with a river winding to meet a town and hazy mountains in the distance. A tall, steep, laurel-green hill to our left is topped with three wooden crosses, and bodies hang from the crosses to either side. A few bands of clouds float across the sky, which deepens from ivory white at the horizon to azure blue along the top edge.
Fra Angelico, The Entombment of Christ, c. 1450, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.260

The Entombment of Christ

Fra Angelico · c. 1450 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.260

A young, pale-skinned woman with reddish-blond hair sits with a nearly nude, chubby toddler standing in her lap in this vertical painting. She looks down at him, her body and face angled to our left. Thin lines creating a gold halo fan out from the back of her head. An ivory-white scarf wraps around her head and trails down the back of her neck where it is tucked into a dark, teal-blue cloak covering her shoulders and draping across her lap. Under the robe, she wears a loose, cherry-red gown with vertical pleats over her chest. The baby, also with pale skin, reddish blond hair, and a delicate gold halo, looks up at her face with light brown eyes. He stands on the woman’s right thigh, to our left. One of the woman's hands wraps around his body and supports his legs, while she props up his chest with her other. A length of pale gray fabric wraps over one shoulder and around his stomach. The two are situated in front of a column and pillar supporting a horizontal lintel overhead. The view beyond is of a blue sky over a golden field with dark green conical cypress trees in the distance.
Sandro Botticelli, Madonna and Child, c. 1470, tempera on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.21

Madonna and Child

Sandro Botticelli · c. 1470 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.21

Tuscan 15th Century, Madonna and Child, c. 1430, painted and gilded terracotta, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.103

Madonna and Child

Tuscan 15th Century · c. 1430 · painted and gilded terracotta ·  Accession ID  1961.9.103

Florentine 15th Century, Cassone Carved and Gilded, fourth quarter 15th century, gilded walnut, Widener Collection, 1942.9.390

Cassone Carved and Gilded

Florentine 15th Century · fourth quarter 15th century · gilded walnut ·  Accession ID  1942.9.390

Bibliography

1970

  • Towner, Wesley. The Elegant Auctioneers. Completed by Stephan Varble. New York, 1970: 381, 422-423.

2017

  • Edgar Peters Bowron, ed/ Buying Baroque : Italian seventeenth-century paintings come to America. , University Park, Pennsylvania : The Frick Collection, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.