This early Italian example of an oil on copper shows the Virgin bestowing the scapular—a small piece of cloth symbolic of the yoke of Christ—on Saint Simon Stock, an English Carmelite monk who allegedly had a vision of this occurrence. Two donors kneel in the left middle distance with Saint Anthony of Padua.
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This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
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Fig. 1. Painting in frame: overall
Fig. 2. Painting in frame: corner
Fig. 3. Painting in frame: angled corner
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Fig. 4. Profile drawing of frame. W 3 3/8 in. 8.5 cm (T. Newbery)
Artwork Details
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Title:The Virgin Adored by Saints
Artist:Scarsellino (Ippolito Scarsella) (Italian, Ferrarese, ca. 1550–1620)
Date:ca. 1609
Medium:Oil on copper
Dimensions:19 1/4 x 29 1/4 in. (48.9 x 74.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Mary Jane Harris, in memory of Morton B. Harris and in honor of Keith Christiansen, 2001
Accession Number:2001.417
Odoardo Zanchini, Bologna (until d. 1710); his son, Alamanno Zanchini, Bologna (1710–d. 1733; inv., 1733, no. 58); his brother, Giovan Battista Zanchini, Bologna (1733–d. 1737); his daughter, Angelica Teresa Zanchini Zambeccari, Bologna (1737–d. 1782; inv., 1783, no. 38); [Julius Weitzner, London, in 1959]; Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ganz, New York (by 1962–71; sold to Harris); Morton B. and Mary Jane Harris, New York (1971–his d. 1995); Mary Jane Harris, New York (1995–2001)
New York. Finch College Museum of Art. "Baroque Painters of Bologna and Neighboring Cities," February 27–April 8, 1962, no. 2 (as "Madonna della Cintola," lent by Paul H. Ganz).
Art Museum, Princeton University. "Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections," April 27–September 7, 1980, no. 44 (as "The Virgin Bestowing a Scapular upon a Saint," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Morton B. Harris).
Modena. chiesa del Voto e Galleria Estense. "Ludovico Lana: l'amorevole maniera e la pittura emiliana del primo Seicento," March 29–June 15, 2003, no. 34 (as "Madonna del Carmine e Ordini mendicanti").
Inventory of Alamanno Zanchini. October 31, 1733, no. 58 [Archivio di Stato, Bologna; published in Gian Piero Cammarota, "Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna: una raccolta di fonti." Vol. 3: "La collezione Zambeccari," 2001, p. 165; Getty no. I-4628], as "La B.V. del Carmine con altre figure £180," without attribution.
Inventory of Angelica Teresa Zanchini Zambeccari. February 17, 1783, no. 38 [Archivio di Stato, Bologna; published in Gian Piero Cammarota, "Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna: una raccolta di fonti." Vol. 3: "La collezione Zambeccari," 2001, p. 203; Getty no. I-3541], as "Un quadro per traverso della grandezza del descritto [i.e., alto piedi 2:1/2, largo piedi 3:4] rapresenta la B.V. del Carmine che da l'Abbitino a varj Religiosi con persone astanti bel quadro che pare del Scarsellini cornice dorata £225".
Mariangela Novelli. "Qualche aggiunta allo Scarsellino." Paragone 117 (September 1959), p. 47, fig. 33, states that Longhi has ascribed the picture to Scarsellino and supports this attribution; calls it the "Apparition of the Madonna to the Founders of the Orders" and dates it to the end of the sixteenth century.
Robert L. Manning. Baroque Painters of Bologna and Neighboring Cities. Exh. cat., Finch College Museum of Art. New York, 1962, unpaginated, no. 2, calls it "Madonna della Cintola" and identifies the subject as Saint Thomas receiving a girdle from the Virgin in the company of fifteen other saints.
Maria Angela Novelli. Lo Scarsellino. Milan, 1964, pp. 18, 36, no. 104, fig. 32b, dates it about 1600, noting that the handling of the landscape and light may reflect Scarsellino's contact with northern artists active in Venice in the 1590s.
John T. Spike. Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections. Exh. cat., Art Museum, Princeton University. Princeton, 1980, pp. 111–12, no. 44, ill., identifies the subject as the Virgin bestowing a scapular on an unidentified saint in the presence of two donors and thirteen monastic saints; notes the scapular is of the third order and suggests it may represent the foundation of a tertiary monastic order; dates the work about 1600–1610.
Mariangela Novelli. "Zibaldone delle arti: mostre." Antichità viva 19 (September–October 1980), p. 44.
"La Chronique des arts: principales acquisitions des musées en 2001." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 139 (March 2002), p. 41, ill.
Adriana Capriotti inLudovico Lana: l'amorevole maniera e la pittura emiliana del primo Seicento. Ed. Daniele Benati and Lucia Peruzzi. Exh. cat., chiesa del Voto e Galleria Estense, Modena. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2003, pp. 126–27, no. 34, ill. (color).
Fabio Chiodini. "La collezione e il mecenatismo di Odoardo Zanchini (1633–1711[sic]): le emergenze di una raccolta." Il Carrobbio 34 (2008), pp. 126, 129, 132 nn. 36–37, ill. p. 123 (color), identifies this work with one included in the 1733 inventory of Alamanno Zanchini, son of the collector Odoardo Zanchini, and the 1783 inventory of Angelica Teresa Zanchini Zambeccari [see Refs. Zanchini 1733 and Zanchini Zambeccari 1783]; apparently in error lists this work as no. 57 in Alamanno Zanchini's inventory [see Gian Piero Cammarota, "Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna: una raccolta di fonti." Vol. 3: "La collezione Zambeccari," 2001, p. 165, where this work is listed as no. 58].
Maria Angela Novelli. Scarsellino. Milan, 2008, p. 308, no. 110, ill. p. 138 (color), apparently mistakenly identifies it with a work mentioned by Cesare Cittadella ("Catalogo istorico de' pittori e scultori ferraresi," vol. 3, 1783, p. 100) as "assai grande con molti Santi di Ordini diversi" in the casa Bevilacqua, Ferrara.
Richard E. Spear. "An Invisible Web: Art Historians Behind the Collecting of Italian Baroque Art." Buying Baroque: Italian Seventeenth-Century Paintings Come to America. Ed. Edgar Peters Bowron. University Park, Pa., 2017, pp. 62, 146 n. 31.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
ca. 1750
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