The Metropolitan Museum of Art - The Adoration of the Magi

The Adoration of the Magi

Bartolo di Fredi (Italian, active by 1353–died 1410 Siena)

Date:: ca. 1390
Culture:: Italian, Siena
Medium:: Tempera and gold on wood
Dimensions:: 58 1/2 x 35 1/8 in. (148.6 x 89.2 cm)
Classification:: Paintings
Credit Line:: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number:: 1975.1.16

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 952

Description

The most important painter in Siena in the second half of the fourteenth century, Bartolo di Fredi produced numerous altarpieces and fresco cycles over a period of approximately fifty years. This "Adoration of the Magi" is closely related to another depiction by the artist of the same subject, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Like the celebrated painting in Siena, this composition originally included the procession of the Magi in the upper zone. Two headless camels and the legs of two attendants and a dog in the upper left corner offer evidence of the once amplified narrative. A fragment of the upper panel is preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon.
Provenance

J. A. Ramboux, Cologne; Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 1867 (J. Niessen, Verzeichniss der Gemälde-Sammlung des Museums Wallraf-Richartz in Köln, 1869, pp. 138-139, no. 763); Edward Hutton, London (letter of Mrs. A. E. Goodhart to the Frick Art Reference Library, December 20, 1934); Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Goodhart, New York, by 1924 (ms. note by R. Offner in the Frick Art Reference Library). Bequeathed by Mrs. Goodhart to Robert Lehman in 1952.
See also
Who
Bartolo di Fredi (3)
What
Metal (59,619)

Gold (12,485)

Paintings (12,465)

Tempera (1,404)
Where
Europe (150,115)

Italy (24,988)

Tuscany (1,231)

Siena (554)
When
A.D. 1000-1400 (7,082)
In the Museum
Robert Lehman Collection (2,589)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
The Birth and Infancy of Christ in Italian Painting

Italian Painting of the Later Middle Ages

Italian Renaissance Frames

Italian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
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