Pisa, between 1833 and 1843. [1]

Private collection, Scotland, before 1946. [2]

Sale, Sotheby’s, London, December 18, 1946, lot 86; [3]

Purchased by Gualtiero Volterra (1901–1967) on behalf of Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi (1878–1955), Florence, 1946; [4]

Sold to Samuel H. Kress (1863–1955), New York, July 11, 1948; [5]

Gift to the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, December 9, 1961;

Administrative transfer to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1972. 

[1] A portion of the painting appears in a drawing by Johann Anton Ramboux after Giovanni dal Ponte (attr. to Spinello Aretino), Mary with the Christchild, after a tempera painting in Pisa,  375 mm x 512 mm which is included in an album of his travel drawings at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, Bib. 2472 VI 3A. From a draft of an unpublished catalog entry written by Eunice D. Howe, curatorial file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the drawing is dated to Anton Ramboux’s second trip to Italy, between 1833 and 1843.

[2] Entry in a list of attributions made and signed by Bernard Berenson, May 15, 1948, Samuel H. Kress Foundation Archive.

[3] Sotheby’s London 1946, p. 8 reproduces the painting and lists it as “The Property of a Gentleman.”

[4] A draft of an unpublished catalog entry written by Eunice D. Howe, curatorial file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco identifies the painting as being purchased by Volterra. Zaninelli 2018, p. 108 confirms it was purchased on behalf of Contini Bonacossi and mistakenly lists the year of purchase as 1948.

[5] Bill of sale, Samuel H. Kress Foundation Archive. Dwyer Modestini, Dianne, Masterpieces: Based on a Manuscript by Mario Modestini, (Fiesole: Cadmo, 2018), p. 270–271 says that Contini Bonacossi prepared a group of paintings for Kress that were purchased in London and Paris and shipped to New York.

Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Fine Paintings, Auction catalog, London: Sotheby’s, December 18, 1946, p. 8, repr., lot 86.

Greig, T. P., “The Auction Rooms,” The Connoisseur 119, no. 503 (March 1947), p. 65.

“Sale Room Prices,” Apollo 45, no. 263 (January 1–June 1947), p. 86.

Carter, A. C. R., The Year’s Art 1945–1947, cat. (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1947), vol. 64.

Suida, William E., The Samuel H. Kress Collection: M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, cat. (San Francisco: M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, 1955), pp. 36, 37, repr.

Neumeyer, Alfred, “The Samuel H. Kress Collection of the M. H. de Young Museum in San Francisco,” The Art Quarterly 18, no. 3 (Autumn 1955), p. 274.

Shell, Curtis H. “Giovanni dal Ponte and the Problem of Other Lesser Contemporaries of Masaccio.” PhD diss. Harvard University, 1958, pp. 40, repr., 92, 103, 115–119, 266.

“News and Comment on Art,” Architect and Engineer 216, no. 1 (January–February 1959), p. 5, repr.

Berti, Luciano, “Masaccio 1422,” Commentari: rivista di critica e storia dell’arte 12 (1961), p. 87, fn. 4.

Berenson, Bernard, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and their Works With an Index of Places, Florentine School, cat. (London: Phaidon, 1963), vol. 1, p. 92, pl. 491; vol. 2, p. 34.

Rusk Shapley, Fern, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, cat. (London: Phaidon, 1966), vol. 1, p. 27, repr. p. 92, fig. 249.

European Works of Art in the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, cat. (Berkeley: Diablo Press, 1966), p. 37, repr.

Meiss, Millard, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke, (London: Phaidon, 1967), p. 384, fn. 140.

Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-nineteenth-century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, cat. (Cambridge: Harvard University press, 1972), pp. 91, 314, 633.

Shell, Curtis H., “Two Triptychs by Giovanni dal Ponte,” Art Bulletin 54, no. 1 (March 1972), p. 41, fig. 2, p. 44, fig. 6.

Hueck, Irene, “Le copie di Johann Anton Ramboux da alcuni affreschi in Toscana ed in Umbria,” Prospettiva 23, (October 1980), p. 9., fn. 6.

Steinberg, Leo, “The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion,” October 25, (Summer 1983), p. 174.

Mayer Brown, Howard, Sonderdruck Aus Imago Musicae 1985, cat. (Basel: Barenreiter-Verlag, 1985), no. 202, pp. 224, 225, repr.

Scott, Curtis R., Owen Hess Dugan, and John Paschetto, eds., Paintings from Europe and the Americas in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: A Concise Catalogue, cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1994), p. 195.

Strehlke, Carl Brandon, Italian Paintings, 1250-1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004), fig. 29.3, pp. 164, repr., 165.

Hiller von Gaertringen Freiherr, Rudolf, Italienische Gemälde im Städel 1300-1550: Toskana und Umbrien, cat. (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2004), pp. 207, fn. 13, 212, fn. 30.

Mack, Charles R., ed., European Art in the Columbia Museum of Art, Including the Samuel H. Kress Collection: The Thirteenth Through the Sixteenth Century, cat. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009), vol. 1, p. 73.

Hourihane, Colum, The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture, cat. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 3.

Sbaraglio, Lorenzo and Angelo Tartuferi, eds., Giovanni dal Ponte: Protagonista dell'umanesimo tardogotico fiorentino, exh. cat., (Florence: Giunti editore, 2016), no. 38a, no. 65, pp. 27, fn. 9, 55, 63, 68, repr., 154–155, 178, 179, repr., 202, 210, 213, repr.

Zaninelli, Fulvia. “Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Antiquario (1878–1955): The Art Market and Cultural Philanthropy in the Formation of American Museums.” PhD diss. University of Edinburgh, 2018, p. 108.
Hall, Rachel, and Helene E. Roberts, eds., Iconographic Index to New Testament Subjects Represented in Photographs and Slides of Paintings in the Visual Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University: Christian Devotional Paintings of the Italian School, (New York: Routledge, 2002).