The figure, portrayed in a Dominican habit and holding a lily, symbol of purity, is a companion to the "Saint George" (05.41.2).

The thirteenth-century founder of the Dominican order, Saint Dominic is shown in his traditional black and white habit and holding a lily in one hand and a book in the other. This painting belongs to a polyptych of which the central panel is a Madonna and Child (MMA 1982.60.5), signed and dated 1472. The central panel was flanked by four standing saints: Nicholas of Bari (Cleveland Museum of Art), James Major (Brooklyn Museum of Art), Dominic, and George (MMA 05.41.2).

A Pietà in the Philadelphia Museum of Art has sometimes been proposed as coming from the same altarpiece, but in the event that the figures are lit from the right rather than the left, this can be eliminated. Bovero (1975) tentatively identified the altarpiece with one recorded in the convent of San Domenico, Fermo, and Lightbown (2004) gives additional evidence in favor of this provenance.

The picture is in very good condition and preserves the original arched shape of the picture field; the gold in the spandrels is modern.

[2011]

probably church of San Domenico, Fermo (until 1827–28; sold to Cantalamessa); probably Ignazio Cantalamessa, Ancona (from 1827–28; sold in Rome); Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Palazzo Falconieri, Rome (until d. 1839; his estate, 1839–45; inv., 1839, no. 15311; cat., 1841, no. 2216; his estate sale, Palazzo Ricci, Rome, March 24ff., 1845, no. 1782, as School of Carlo Crivelli, for 36 scudi to Bromley); Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley, Wootton Hall, Ashbourne, Derbyshire (1845–d. 1863; his estate sale, Christie's, London, June 12, 1863, no. 68, as by Crivelli, for £46.4.0 to Goldsmith); [Goldsmith, from 1863]; Louisa, Lady Ashburton, London (by 1871–d. 1903; her estate sale, Christie's, London, July 8, 1905, no. 14, with no. 13 for £1,575 to Colnaghi); [Colnaghi, London, 1905]; [Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell, London and New York, 1905; sold to MMA]

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," January–March 1884, no. 243 (as by Carlo Crivelli, lent by Louisa, Lady Ashburton).

London. New Gallery. "Venetian Art," 1894–95, no. 88 (lent by Louisa, Lady Ashburton).

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," January 4–March 12, 1904, no. 43 (lent by the Marquess of Northampton, the property of the late Louisa, Lady Ashburton).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Temporary Exhibition," April 1906, no. 5.

Lexington, Va. Washington and Lee University. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art Loan Exhibit," October 30, 1950–January 15, 1951, no. 3.

Athens, Ga. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia. February 15–April 5, 1951, no catalogue?

New York. Wildenstein. "The Italian Heritage," May 17–August 29, 1967, no. 6c.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Venetian Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," May 1–September 2, 1974, no catalogue.

Posthumous inventory of Cardinal Fesch. 1839, fol. 449r, no. 15311 [Archivio di Stato, Rome, Not. Capitol., Ufficio 11, not. Augusto Appolloni, anno 1839, vol. 611, fol. 37r–503v; see Ref. Thiébaut 1987], with Saint James (no. 15310; Brooklyn Museum of Art), as "Due quadri in tavola alti piedi tre, e mezzo larghi piede uno rappresentante S. Domenico, e S. Giacomo della Scuola del Crivelli. Scudi trenta l'uno, e cosi in tutto. Scudi sessanta".

Catalogue des tableaux composant la galerie de feu son éminence le cardinal Fesch. Rome, 1841, p. 91, no. 2216, as "'Saint Dominique'; petite figure peinte avec une grande précision, dans le style de l'école du Crivelli," 3 pieds 6 pouces high by 1 pied wide.

[Gustav Friedrich] Waagen. Treasures of Art in Great Britain. London, 1854, vol. 3, p. 377, as in the Davenport Bromley collection; attributes this painting and its companion, Saint George (MMA), as well as Saints James (Brooklyn Museum of Art) and Nicholas (Cleveland Museum of Art) from the same altarpiece [see Notes], to Jacobello del Fiore.

J[oseph]. A[rcher]. Crowe and G[iovanni]. B[attista]. Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in North Italy: Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Milan, Friuli, Brescia, from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century. London, 1871, vol. 1, p. 10 n. 1 (from p. 9), report Waagen's attribution [see Ref. 1854].

George Redford. Art Sales. London, 1888, vol. 2, p. 227, lists it as having been sold for £46.4 to Goldsmith at the Davenport Bromley sale of 1863.

Bernhard Berenson. The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd ed. New York, 1894, p. 106 [1895 ed., p. 99], as in the collection of Lady Ashburton, London; attributes it to Carlo Crivelli.

Bernhard Berenson. Venetian Painting, Chiefly Before Titian, at the Exhibition of Venetian Art. London, [1895], p. 12 [reprinted in "The Study and Criticism of Italian Art," London, 1901, p. 103], calls it later than the Benson Madonna (MMA), dated 1472.

G[eorg]. Gronau. "Correspondance d'Angleterre: l'art vénitien à Londres, à propos de l'exposition de la New Gallery." Gazette des beaux-arts, 3rd ser., 13 (February 1895), p. 166, assigns it to Crivelli's middle period.

G. M'Neil Rushforth. Carlo Crivelli. reprint, 1908. London, 1900, p. 93.

"Two Panels by Crivelli." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 1 (January 1906), pp. 28–30, ill.

Elisabeth Luther Cary. "The Galleries: Carlo Crivelli." Scrip 3 (October 1907), pp. 23–24, 30.

Lionello Venturi. Le origini della pittura veneziana, 1300–1500. Venice, 1907, p. 211.

Morton H. Bernath. New York und Boston. Leipzig, 1912, p. 76, fig. 79.

J[oseph]. A[rcher]. Crowe and G[iovanni]. B[attista]. Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in North Italy: Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Milan, Friuli, Brescia, from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century. 2nd ed. [1st ed. 1871]. London, 1912, vol. 1, p. 95 n., Borenius mentions it.

B. Geiger in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. 8, Leipzig, 1913, p. 132, lists it among unsigned works and school pieces.

A[dolfo]. Venturi. "La pittura del Quattrocento." Storia dell'arte italiana. 7, part 3, Milan, 1914, p. 394 n. 1.

Bernhard Berenson. "Venetian Paintings in the United States: Part Two." Art in America 3 (April 1915), p. 117 [reprinted in Bernard Berenson, "Venetian Painting in America: The Fifteenth Century," New York, 1916, pp. 21–22], dates it about 1488.

Laudedeo Testi. "Il divenire." La storia della pittura veneziana. 2, Bergamo, 1915, p. 688.

Franz Drey. Carlo Crivelli und seine Schule. Munich, 1927, p. 141, pl. LXI.

Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 162.

Lionello Venturi. "Fifteenth Century Renaissance." Italian Paintings in America. 2, New York, 1933, unpaginated, pl. 365, states that this picture, Saint George (MMA), and Saint James (Brooklyn Museum of Art) all formed part of the same altarpiece as the Madonna dated 1472 (MMA).

Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 139.

Raimond van Marle. "The Renaissance Painters of Venice." The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 18, The Hague, 1936, p. 60.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 178–79, ill., adds the panel depicting Saint Nicholas (Cleveland Museum of Art) to the 1472 polyptych.

Henry S. Francis. "'St. Nicholas' by Carlo Crivelli." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39 (September 1952), pp. 187–89, publishes the panel depicting Saint Nicholas of Bari and tentatively accepts the connection with the 1472 polyptych.

Pietro Zampetti. Carlo Crivelli nelle Marche. Urbino, 1952, p. 68, no. 78.

Federico Zeri. "Il Maestro della Annunciazione Gardner." Bollettino d'arte 38 (July–September 1953), p. 241, accepts the reconstruction of the 1472 polyptych.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. London, 1957, vol. 1, p. 70, pl. 137 (reconstruction), accepts the reconstruction of the 1472 polyptych.

Rodolfo Pallucchini. La pittura veneta del Quattrocento. 2, Padua, 1957–58, p. 17 [see Refs. Zeri and Gardner 1973 and Zampetti 1986].

Anna Bovero. Tutta la pittura del Crivelli. Milan, 1961, pp. 59–60, pl. 28B.

Rodolfo Pallucchini. "Carlo Crivelli in Palazzo Ducale." Pantheon 19 (November–December 1961), p. 274.

Pietro Zampetti. Carlo Crivelli. Milan, 1961, pp. 75–77, figs. 24 (reconstruction), 29, tentatively adds five predella panels and a Deposition (or Pietà; Johnson collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art) to the 1472 altarpiece [see Notes].

Federico Zeri. "Cinque schede per Carlo Crivelli." Arte antica e moderna no. 13/16 (1961), p. 162.

Barbara Sweeny. John G. Johnson Collection: Catalogue of Italian Paintings. Philadelphia, 1966, p. 25, under no. 158, accepts the expanded reconstruction of the 1472 polyptych, including the Philadelphia Pietà and the five predella panels; mistakenly cites Zeri [see Ref. 1961] as associating the Philadelphia Pietà with this polyptych.

Fern Rusk Shapley. "Italian Schools: XV–XVI Century." Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. 2, London, 1968, p. 35, accepts the expanded reconstruction of the polyptych.

Pietro Zampetti. La pittura marchigiana da Gentile a Raffaello. [Milan], [1970?], p. 182.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 60, 391, 605.

Letters of Roger Fry. New York, 1972, vol. 1, pp. 25–26, 255 n. 1 to letter no. 177 (March 2, 1906), lists it among works included in the 1906 exhibition.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Venetian School. New York, 1973, pp. 21–22, pl. 20.

Elizabeth de Fernandez-Gimenez in "European Paintings Before 1500." The Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue of Paintings. part 1, Cleveland, 1974, pp. 68–69, under no. 26, fig. 26a (reconstruction).

Anna Bovero. L'opera completa del Crivelli. Milan, 1975, pp. 83, 88–89, no. 49, ill., states that the altarpiece must have been made for a Dominican church, and suggests the convent of San Domenico, Fermo, noting that a Madonna with two saints is recorded as having been sold from there shortly before 1834.

David Robertson. Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World. Princeton, 1978, p. 223.

Everett Fahy. "Babbott's Choices." Apollo, n.s., 115 (April 1982), p. 240.

Keith Christiansen in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1983–1984. New York, 1984, p. 46.

Keith Christiansen in The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1984, pp. 30–31, under no. 5, believes that neither the Philadelphia Pietà nor the five predella panels [see Notes] belong to the 1472 altarpiece; rejects the identification of the 1472 altarpiece with the one sold from San Domenico, Fermo [see Notes]; thinks the correct order of the four flanking panels is, left to right, Saints Nicholas, James, George, and Dominic.

John Pope-Hennessy. "Roger Fry and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Oxford, China, and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton on his Eightieth Birthday. London, 1984, p. 234.

Pietro Zampetti. Carlo Crivelli. Florence, 1986, p. 260, pl. 14 (reconstruction), colorpl. 18, ill. pp. 84 (color detail), 258 (reconstruction), 260, agrees with Bovero [see Ref. 1975] that the provenance could be San Domenico, Fermo.

Dominique Thiébaut. Ajaccio, musée Fesch: les primitifs italiens. Paris, 1987, p. 180, ill., quotes from the Fesch inventory of 1839 [see Ref.]; gives the purchase price at the Fesch sale of 1845 as 36 scudi.

Important Old Master Pictures. Christie's, London. May 24, 1991, p. 61, fig. a, illustrates a watercolor by James Johnson of about 1850 showing this work hanging on the wall of Walter Davenport Bromley's drawing room at Wootton Hall.

Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi New York. New York, 1992, p. 131.

Stefano Papetti in Vittore Crivelli e la pittura del suo tempo nel Fermano. Milan, 1997, pp. 56, 68 n. 11, identifies the 1472 polyptych with an altarpiece by Carlo Crivelli bought by Ignazio Cantalamessa from the Dominicans in Fermo on May 26, 1831 for 50 scudi.

Valter Curzi in Pittura veneta nelle Marche. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2000, pp. 307, 320 n. 4.

Angela Montironi in Pittura veneta nelle Marche. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2000, p. 125, fig. 8 (color).

Cecilia Prete in Pittura veneta nelle Marche. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2000, pp. 343–44, 349 n. 152, tentatively agrees with Papetti [see Ref. 1997] in identifying the 1472 altarpiece with the work bought by Cantalamessa from the Dominican convent in Fermo.

Ronald Lightbown. Carlo Crivelli. New Haven, 2004, pp. 127–28, 131–32, 135–36, pl. 33, states that the altarpiece to which the five panels belong was painted for San Domenico, Fermo, probably for a secondary altar; rejects the association with the Philadelphia Pietà.

Lisa Monnas. Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings, 1300–1550. New Haven, 2008, pp. 171, 359 n. 132.

Matteo Mazzalupi in Botticelli to Titian: Two Centuries of Italian Masterpieces. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. Budapest, 2009, p. 212.