The Birth of St. John the Baptist
The Birth of St. John the Baptist
- Artist
- Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend
- Artist Dates
- active c. 1480-1510
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- The Birth of St. John the Baptist
- Date
- c. 1500
- Medium
- panel
- Dimensions
- 60 x 100.3 cm (23-5/8 x 39-1/2 in)
- K Number
- K1152A
- Repository
- Howard University Gallery of Art
- Accession Number
- 62.157.P
- Notes
Provenance
Henry Pelham Archibald Douglas Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme [d.1928]; by inheritance to his nephew, Henry Edward Hugh Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 9th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme [1866-1941]; (sold, Christies, London, 4 June 1937, no. 15, as Bartolommeo di Giovanni with companion as a single panel); (Giuseppe Bellesi, London); (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] on 16 September 1938 as Umbrian-Tuscan Master; gift to Howard University Gallery of Art in 1961, Washington, DC, no. 62.157.P.
Catalogue Entry
Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend
The Birth of St. John the Baptist
K1152A
Washington, D.C., Howard University, Study Collection (62.157.P and 62.158.P), since 1962. Wood. K1152A, 23 5/8 x 39 1/2 in. (60 x 100.3 cm.); K1152B, 23 1/2 x 37 1/8 in. (59.7 x 94.3 cm.). Extensively damaged and too heavily varnished; being transferred, cleaned, and restored, 1966. Former attributions to Domenico Ghirlandaio's sons and to Granacci locate K1152A and B in a Florentine workshop of about 1500,(1) That they are by the artist who painted the Apollo and Daphne panels K1721A and B has been convincingly proposed.(2) K1152A and B, originally together as a single long predella panel with scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist, showed from left to right: the Visitation (background), the Naming, the Birth, the Beheading, the Dance of Salome, the Feast of Herod. Provenance: Seventh Duke of Newcastle, from whom by inheritance, to the following. Earl of Lincoln, Clumber, Worksop, Nottinghamshire (sold, Christie's, London, June 4, 1937, no. 15, as a single panel, 22 1/2 x 77 1/2 in., by Bartolommeo di Giovanni; bought by Giuseppe Bellesi, London). Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1938 –exhibited: Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Okla., 1953-59.(3)
References
(1) K1152A and B have been attributed (in ms. opinions) to Benedetto or Davide Ghirlandaio by G. Fiocco, F. M. Perkins, W. E. Suida (see also note 3, below), and to a Florentine in the tradition of Bartolommeo di Giovanni and Biagio d' Antonio by R. Longhi. They have been given tentatively to Granacci by B. Berenson (Italian Pictures ... Florentine School, vol. I, 1963, p. 100). (2) See F. Zeri's opinion in note 1 to K1721A, B, above. (3) Catalogue byW.E. Suida, 1953, p. 46, as Florentine, end of fifteenth-century.