Filippino Lippi, 'The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome and Dominic', about 1485
About the work
Overview
The Virgin Mary is seated at the centre of this painting, in the middle of a landscape. She is breastfeeding the infant Christ; a little bird (a coal tit) perched in the large tree behind her also feeds its young. Saint Jerome, kneeling before the Virgin, looks on in devotion. He clutches the stone that he is said to have pounded against his chest to help him resist temptation. Saint Dominic kneels opposite, absorbed in the book he is reading. The white lily, his traditional attribute, alludes to the Virgin’s purity.
This altarpiece by Filippino Lippi originally stood on an altar in a chapel belonging to a member of the powerful Rucellai family in the important medieval church of S. Pancrazio in Florence. The elaborate frame is a nineteenth-century reproduction of what may have been the original one. It includes a horizontal panel at the bottom that depicts the dead Christ flanked by Saints Francis and Mary Magdalene between the Rucellai coats of arms.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome and Dominic
- Artist
- Filippino Lippi
- Artist dates
- about 1457 - 1504
- Date made
- about 1485
- Medium and support
- oil and egg tempera on wood
- Dimensions
- 203.2 × 186.1 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1857
- Inventory number
- NG293
- Location
- Room 11
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Frame
- 19th-century Italian Frame
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
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1677F. Bocchi and G. Cinelli, Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza, dove a pieno di pittvra di scvltvra di sacri templi di palazzi, i piu notabili artifizj, e piu preziosi si contengono, Florence 1677
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1754G. Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, 10 vols, Florence 1754
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1878G. Vasari, Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori: Con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, ed. G. Milanesi, 8 vols, Florence 1878
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1934R.N.D. Wilson, The National and Tate Galleries, London 1934
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1935A. Scharf, Filippino Lippi, Vienna 1935
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1938K.B. Neilson, Filippino Lippi: A Critical Study, Cambridge MA 1938
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1951Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
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1961M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
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1964W. Lotz and L.L. Möller (eds), Studien zur Toskanischen Kunst, München 1964
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1966J.R. Spencer, 'The Lament at the Tomb" by Filippino Lippi', Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, XXIV/1, 1966, pp. 23-34
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1975S. Schwartz, The Iconography of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Ann Arbor 1975
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1984B. Ridderbos, Saint and Symbol: Images of Saint Jerome in Early Italian Art, Groningen 1984
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1986Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
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1987F.M. Fales and B.J. Hickey (eds), Austen Henry Layard tra l'Oriente e Venezia: Venezia, 26-28 ottobre 1983, Rome 1987
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1988J. Burckhardt, The Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy, ed. P. Humfrey, Oxford 1988
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1991L. Berti, Filippino Lippi, Florence 1991
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1991J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
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1991F. Zeri, Giorno per giorno nella pittura: Scritti sull'arte dell'Italia settentrionale dal trecento al primo cinquecento, Turin 1991
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1996B.L. Dunbar and E.J. Olszewski (eds), Drawings in Midwestern Collections, vol. 1, Early Works, Columbia 1996
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1997G.R. Goldner et al., The Drawings of Filippino Lippi and his Circle (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 28 October 1997 - 11 January 1998), New York 1997
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1998L. Dittrich and S. Dittrich, 'Tiersubstitute für tradierte Tiersymbole: Die Erweiterung des Kanons von Tieren mit Sinnbildbedeutung in der Tafelmalerei des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts', Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, LIX, 1998, pp. 123-54
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2004E. March, Gebärden in der florentiner Malerei: Studien zur Charakterisierung von Heiligen, Uomini Famosi und Zeitgenossen im Quattrocento, Münster 2004
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2004P. Zambrano and J.K. Nelson, Filippino Lippi, Milan 2004
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2004B. Williamson, 'Altarpieces, Liturgy and Devotion', Speculum, LXXIX/2, 2004, pp. 341-406
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2005A.K. Fondaras, 'Our Mother the Holy Wisdom of God": Nursing in Botticelli's Bardi Altarpiece', Storia dell'arte, CXI, 2005, pp. 7-34
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
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