Object details
Object number
P12w20
Creator(s)
Attributed to
Giovanni di Francia
(active 1451-1462)
Title
The Virgin and Child Enthroned
Date
1472
Medium
Tempera on lime plaster (transfered to linen)
Dimensions
164.8 x 121.3 cm (64 7/8 x 47 3/4 in.)
Provenance
Created for the second floor (primo piano) of Casa dei Battuti, Oderzo, Veneto. (with a second fresco by the same artist, museum no. P12w24)
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the cabiner maker and antiquarian Antonio Carrer (d. 1912), Venice for 1,200 lire on 25 September 1897.
Commentary
Seated in a massive wooden throne, the Virgin Mary raises her hands in prayer over the infant Christ. This fresco, a wall painting in tempera pigments on wet plaster, adorned the meeting room of a religious confraternity in the town of Oderzo, outside Venice. Executed by local painter Giovanni di Francia in 1472, it consisted of this central image flanked by four saints, which remains in Italy in situ.
Bibliography
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), p. 4. (as Veneto)
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), pp. 399-400, ill. (as Venetian (?), 1350-1450)
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 78. (as Venetian (?), 1350-1450)
Rollin van N. Hadley. "Report of the Director." Fenway Court (1970), pp. 46, 49, ill. (as Venetian, 1350-1450)
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, 1972), p. 246. (as Venetian, 15th century)
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 276-77, ill. (as Venetian (?), 1400-1450)
Irene Samessa in Francesca Maronese. Il tempo ritrovo. Restauro di Casa dei Battuti e Ca' Balbi a Oderzo (Padua, 2011), pp. 96-101, ill. (as Venetian (?), 1400-1450; similar to the frescos in the Church of Visitazione della Beata Vergine Maria di Susegana by a follower of Giovanni di Francia)
Irene Samessa. "Casa dei Battuti di Orderzo: un affresco di Giovanni di Francia ritrovato?" Commentari d'arte. Rivista di critica e storia dell'arte, vol. 18 (April 2012) pp. 66-69, figs. 3-4. (as by Giovanni di Francia)
Gallery
East, North, And West Cloister
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