The Exaltation of the True Cross
The Exaltation of the True Cross
- Artist
- Sebastiano Ricci
- Artist Dates
- 1659-1734
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- The Exaltation of the True Cross
- Date
- 1733
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 84 x 35 cm (33 1/16 x 13 3/4 in)
- K Number
- K164
- Repository
- National Gallery of Art
- Accession Number
- 1939.1.72
- Notes
Provenance
Count Grigory Stroganov [1829-1910], Rome. [1] (Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi, Rome, 1927); purchased 1931 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; [2] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] According to National Gallery of Art, Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, Washington, D.C., 1941: 169. This painting and its pendant (NGA 1939.1.71) do not appear in catalogues of Stroganov sales or in those of the collection, which include only selected works. According to Antonio Muñoz, La collezione Stroganoff, Rome, 1910, Stroganov amassed his collection c. 1880-1890 and bought many things from the sale of Cardinal Immenraet. It has not been possible to locate a catalogue of the Immenraet collection. [2] The dates are given on the back of a photograph sent to the Frick Art Reference Library by Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi at the NGA on 1 July 1969. The painting and its pendant are documented in the Kress collection in 1932 by Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Eighteenth Century Venice in a New York Collection", The Fine Arts 19 (December 1932): 30.
Catalogue Entry
Sebastiano Ricci
The Exaltation of the True Cross
K164
Columbia, S.C., Columbia Museum of Art (54-402/19), since 1954.(1) Canvas. 58 7/8 x 38 5/8 in. (149.6 x 98.1 cm.). Good condition; some restoration in right background. This is thought to be one of the earliest of Strozzi's many paintings of St. Catherine and similarly represented female saints. The date is presumably between 1615 and 1620,(2) when the influence of Barocci's sweetness and clear coloring was strong but was being modified by the contrasts of light and shade characteristic of such Milanese painters as Cerano. Among the closely related examples by Strozzi are a St. Dorothea in a New York private collection(3) and a St. Catherine of Alexandria in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford.(4) K1640 was at one time thought to represent St. Ursula;(5) removal of repaint revealed part of St. Catherine's wheel of martyrdom on the ground at the left. A smaller painting of, very similar composition was entitled St. Cecilia when shown, as no. 40, in the 1947 exhibition cited in Provenance.(6) Provenance: Private Collection, Genoa –exhibited: 'Pittura del Seicento e Settecento in Liguria,' Palazzo Reale, Genoa, June 21-Sept. 30, 1947, no. 47 of catalogue by A. Morassi, as St. Ursula by Strozzi, c. 1620.(7) Ars Antiqua, New York. Kress acquisition, 1949 –exhibited: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa., 1950-53;(8) after entering the Columbia Museum of Art: 'Art Treasures for America,' National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 1961-Feb. 4, 1962, no. 89 of catalogue, as Strozzi; 'Bernardo Strozzi,' University of New York, Binghamton, N.Y., Oct. 8-Nov. 5, 1967, no. 4 of catalogue by M. Milkovich, as Strozzi, c. 1615/20.
References
(1) Catalogue by W. E. Suida, 1954, p. 47, and by A. Contini Bonacossi, 1962, pp. 122 f., as Strozzi, c. 1620. (2) This is the dating regularly suggested in the literature on the picture (see catalogue entries cited under Provenance; also L. Mortari, Bernardo Strozzi, 1966, pp. 25 and 100). See also A. Matteucci, in Arte Veneta, vol. XXII, 1968, p. 264. (3) Formerly Morandotti Collection, Rome; reproduced by Mortari, fig. 98 of op. cit. in note 2, above. (4) Reproduced, ibid., fig. III. (5) See Morassi, under Provenance. (6) Not reproduced in the catalogue but reported by A. Contini Bonacossi (in notation) to be very similar in composition to K1640. (7) This exhibition took place before the wheel, identifying the saint as Catherine, had been revealed by the cleaning of K1640. (8) Suida, in Philadelphia Museum Bulletin, vol. XLVI, Autumn 1950, pp. 16, 18, as Strozzi.
Catalogue Volume
Italian Paintings XVI – XVIII Century