The Nativity
The Nativity
- Artist
- Bicci di Lorenzo
- Artist Dates
- 1373-1452
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- The Nativity
- Date
- 1420-30
- Medium
- oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 14.5 x 50.2 cm (6-7/8 x 19-3/4 in)
- K Number
- K1228
- Repository
- Arizona State University Art Museum
- Accession Number
- 101
- Notes
Provenance
Enrico Marinucci, Rome, 1934. [1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold 1939 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; gift 1961 to Arizona State University Art Museum, no. 101. [1] Described and illustrated by Wilhelm Suida, "Italian Primitives in the Marinucci Collection in Rome," Apollo XX (September 1934), p. 122+. t doesn not it appear to be included in a letter dated 1 October 1936 from an Enrico Cappiello, offering pictures on behalf of Marinucci to the director of the Wiliam Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, curatorial file for Tanzio da Varallo, 1944.2, copy NGA curatorial records). It is likely that those paintings came from the collection of Marinucci's uncle, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri [1852-1934].
Catalogue Entry
Bicci di Lorenzo
The Nativity
K1228
Tempe, Ariz., Arizona State University, Study Collection (101), since 1962. Wood. 6 7/8 x 19 3/4 in. (17.5 x 50.2 cm.). Good condition. The strong reminders of Gentile da Fabriano, especially the picturesque details of the shepherds and flock on the right, suggest a date of about 1420/30 for K1228. Like a number of other known panels by Bicci,(l) it comes from an altarpiece predella. Very close to it in composition and style is Bicci's predella panel of the same scenes – hill city with stream at left, Nativity in the middle, and shepherds at right – in the Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Provenance: Cav. Enrico Marinucci, Rome. Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1939 –exhibited: Traveling Exhibition, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz., Apr.-Sept. 1960.
References
(1) W. E. Suida (in Apollo, vol. xx, 1934, pp. 119 f.), G. Fiocco, R. Longhi, F. M. Perkins, and A. Venturi (in ms. opinions) attribute K1228 to Bicci di Lorenzo.