Virgin Annunciate

Artist: Sassetta (Italian, Siena, 1392–1450)

ca. 1430–32

European Art

Not on view
Medium

Tempera and gold on panel

Dimensions

31 1/2 × 21 1/2 in. (80 × 54.6 cm)
unframed: 23 7/16 × 19 11/16 in. (59.5 × 50 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Hannah D. and Louis M. Rabinowitz

Accession Number

1959.15.5

Geography

Made in Siena, Italy

Culture

Italian, Siena

Period

15th century

Classification

Paintings

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Believed to have been in Italy, perhaps at Chiusdino; Langton Douglas Collection, London; Dan Fellows Platt Collection, Englewood, New Jersey (ca. 1911–36); E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York, NY; Rabinowitz Collection, Sands Point, Long Island (ca. 1944–59).

"In 1911 Mason Perkins discovered two pinnacles, one with the Angel Gabriel now in Massa Marittima and the other with the Virgin Annunciate now in New Haven (figs. 20, 21). Mason Perkins, followed by Pope-Hennessy, suggested that they were the lateral crowning elements of the Madonna della Neve. A missing Salvator would have gone in between the Annunciation pinnacles. In 1956, Zeri pointed out that this reconstruction was architecturally and stylistically incongruous and associated the Annunciation instead with the Arte della Lana altarpiece. This suggestion was rightly rejected by Christiansen, who, however, subsequently reproposed a Madonna della Neve provenance. Yet Blauwkuip's findings had already clarified the situation. The pinnacles cannot be associated with any other known work of Sassetta, and must therefore be considered as the only remnants of an altarpiece of so far unknown provenance" (Israëls 2003, pp. 60-61).
Bibliography
  • Machtelt Israëls, Sassetta's Madonna della Neve: An Image of Patronage (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2003), 60–62, fig. 21
  • Machtelt Israëls, "New documents for Sassetta and Sano di Pietro at the Porta Romana, Siena," Burlington Magazine (1998), 436–444
  • Keith Christiansen, Laurence Kanter, and Carl Strehlke, The Arte della Lana altarpiece (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988), 65
  • Henk van Os, Sienese altarpieces, 1215-1460: form, content, function (Groningen, The Netherlands: Bouma's Boekhuis, 1984-1990), 167–168
  • L. Blauwkuip, Sassetta's Madonna della Neve altaarstuk (Groningen, Germany: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1980), 13
  • Everett Fahy, "Review of Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery," Art Bulletin 56, no. 2 (June 1974), 284
  • Andrew Carnduff Ritchie and Katherine Neilson, Selected Paintings and Sculpture from the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), no. 9
  • Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 183, 601
  • Charles Seymour Jr., Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1970), 207, 209, no. 156, fig. 156
  • Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, 3 vols. (London: Phaidon, 1968), 1:386
  • Enzo Carli, Sassetta e il Maestro dell' Osservanza (Milan: Aldo Martello Editore, 1957), 12
  • John Pope-Hennessy, "Rethinking Sassetta," Burlington Magazine 98 (1956), 364–70
  • Federico Zeri, "Towards a Reconstruction of Sassetta's Arte della Lana Triptych (1423-6)," Burlington Magazine 98 (1956), 36–39
  • Edna Perkel, An Exhibition of Paintings: for the Benefit of the Research Fund of Art and Archaeology, The Spanish Institute, Inc., exh. cat. (New York: E. and A. Silberman Galleries, Inc., 1955), 16, no. 4, ill
  • John Pope-Hennessy, Sienese Quattrocento Painting (London: London, 1947), 25
  • Louis M. Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz Collection (New York: The Twin Editions, 1945), 13–14, pl. VII, fig. 2
    Sassetta, part of Madonna della Neve altarpiece
  • John Pope-Hennessy, Sassetta (London: London, 1939), 27, 53, note 69
    Sassetta, as lateral panel with Massa Marittima Angel contiguous to panel of the Redeemer in Madonna della Neve altarpiece
  • Bernard Berenson, Pitture italiane del rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere (Milan, Italy: Ulrico Hoepli, 1936), 440
  • Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, 3 vols. (New York: E. Weyhe, Inc., 1933), pl. 144
  • George Harold Edgell, A History of Sienese Painting (New York: Dial Press, 1932), 192, fig. 252
  • Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 512
  • Lionello Venturi, Pitture italiane in America (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1931), pl. CXI
  • Raimond van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, 19 vols. (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1923–38), 334–335, fig. 211
  • Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A history of painting in Italy, Umbria, Florence and Siena, from the second to the sixteenth century (London: London, 1914), 169–170, note 1
    Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection, as one of three cusps crowning the Madonna della Neve altarpiece
  • Nicola da Giacomo, "Sassetta between 1423 and 1433-II," Burlington Magazine 23 (1913), 278, pl. IV, Q
    Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection, as cusp on the sinister side crowning the Madonna della Neve altarpiece in the Duomo of Siena
  • F. Mason Perkins, "A Proposito della Pala del Sassetta a Chiusdino," Rassegna d'Arte 13 (1913), 40
  • F. Mason Perkins, "La Pala d'altare del Sassetta a Chiusdino," Rassegna d'Arte 12 (1912), 196
  • F. Mason Perkins, "Dipinti italiani nella raccolta Platt," Rassegna d'arte antica e moderna 11 (1911), 5, fig. 7
  • Bernard Berenson, "A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend," Burlington Magazine 2 and 4 (1903), 179–180, discusses Sassetta's Madonna della Neve altarpiece
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

altarpieces, religious art

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