TOMMASO* or THE MASTER OF THE SANTO SPIRITO SACRA CONVERSAZIONE* (15h/16th Century)

Details

TOMMASO* or THE MASTER OF THE SANTO SPIRITO SACRA CONVERSAZIONE* (15h/16th Century)

Venus and Adonis

oil on canvas
36½ x 82½in. (93 x 210cm.)

Provenance

Sir Otto Beit, 1st Bt., Tewin Water, Welwyn, Herts, 1909, by descent to his daughters
Mrs. Arthur Bull, Tewin Water, Welwyn, Herts; sale, Christie's, London, Oct. 25, 1946, lot 15, as Lorenzo di Credi (500 gns. to Kaufmann)
with Matthiesen Fine Arts, London, 1946
Archibald Werner, Edenbridge, Kent, by 1962; sale, Sotheby's, London,
March 27, 1968, lot 31, as "Tommaso" (# [$14,400] to S. Gray)
with Luigi Grassi, Florence, from whom purchased by the museum in 1972

Literature

W. von Bode, Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures and Bronzes in the Possession of Mr. Otto Beit, 1913, pp. 42-44, illustrated p. 45, as Lorenzo di Credi, Allegory of Chastity
P. Schubring, Cassoni, 1, 1923, no. 376, p. 308, pl. LXXXVIII, as Lorenzo di Credi
B. Degenhart, Die Schüler des Lorenzo di Credi, Müncher Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, n.s., 9, 1932, p. 111, as Gianjacopo di Castrocaro
B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento, 1936, p. 496, as "Tommaso"
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, I, 1963, p. 207, as a 'cassone panel' and companion to the Wemyss picture; II, pl. 1181, as "Tommaso"
G. Dalli Regoli, Lorenzo di Credi, 1966, pp. 22, 110, no. 27, as early Lorenzo di Credi
M. Bacci, Piero di Cosimo, 1966, p. 116, among pictures wrongly attributed to Piero di Cosimo
G. Dalli Regoli, Precisazioni sul Credi, Critica d'Arte, 116, March/Apr. 1971, pp. 67-80, illustrated by 67
B. Fredericksen, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1975, p. 57

Exhibited

London, Arundel Club, 1909, no. 3, as Piero di Cosimo
Tulsa, Philbrook Art Center, Gloria dell'Arte-A Renaissance Perspective, 1979-80, no. 141, as follower of Lorenzo di Credi

Lot Essay

The pendant to the present lot, The Death of Adonis (83.5 x 225cm.), is in the collection of the Earl of Wemyss. D. dalli Regoli (op. cit., p. 78, note 4) notes that the discrepency in size between the present lot and the Wemyss painting may be the result of the present lot having been transferred from panel to canvas. However, this theory is incorrect as the painting does not appear to have been transferred from panel.

Everett Fahy, having examined the present lot in the original, does not believe that the painting has been transferred from panel. This is confirmed by the presence of some areas of the unpainted edges of the original canvas which are currently visible.

We are grateful to Fahy for suggestion the attribution to Tomasso. He believes that the picture would have formed part of a room decoration