Commissioned for the Oratory of Saint George at the Church of San Domenico, Messina, Italy, ca. 1515/20, until 1775 [1]
Sir John Francis Edward Acton, 6th Baronet (1736-1811), Aldenham Hall, Shropshire, after 1775
By descent to his son Sir Ferdinand Richard Edward Dalberg-Acton, 7th Baronet (1801-1837), Aldenham Hall
By descent to his son John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton of Aldenham (1834-1902)
His sale, Christie's, London, 20 June 1896, lot 77 as Italian School
Purchased by Johnson, probably buying for Sir Francis Cook, 1st Baronet (1817-1901), Doughty House, Surrey, United Kingdom
By descent to Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd Baronet (1844-1920), Doughty House
By descent to Sir Herbert Frederick Cook, 3rd Baronet (1868-1939), Doughty House
Sir Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th Baronet. (1907-1978), Doughty House, and Cothay Manor, Somerset, United Kingdom
[Sold to Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi (1878-1955) Rome and Florence], 1948
Sold to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York, 10 March 1949
Gift to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, 1961
Administrative transfer to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1972

[1] Per the Kress Foundation: https://www.kressfoundation.org/kress-collection/repository/fine-arts-museums-of-san-francisco.

London, British Institution, June 1849. “Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English Masters with which the proprietors have favoured the institution,” no. 76.

Susinno, Francesco, Le Vite dei Pittori Messinesi, Messina, 1742, pg. 39.

Von Seidlitz, W., “Die Mailänder Ausstellung im Burlington Club,” in Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 21, eds. Henry Thode and Hugo von Tschudi, Berlin: Verlag W. Spemann, 1898, pg. 408.

Illustrated Catalogue of Pictures by Masters of the Milanese and Allied Schools of Lombardy. London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1899, lxviii–lxix, plate XV.

Pauli, Gustav, “Ausstellung von Gemälden der lombardischen Schule im Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, April–Juni 1898,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 34 (1898/99), pg. 145.

Cook, Herbert F., “Les trésors de l’art italien en Angleterre. L'école milanese,” Gazette des Beaux Arts, no. 21 (1899), pg. 25, repr., pg. 26.

Cook, Herbert F., “La collection de Sir Frederick Cook,” Les Arts 4, no. 44 (August 1905): 8, repr. pg. 10.

Berenson, Bernard, North Italian Painters of the Renaissance, New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907, pg. 195.

Sinigaglia, Giorgio, “Un Dipinto di Cesare da Sesto destinato alla Pinacoteca di Brera,” Bollettino d’Arte 2, no. 10 (October 1907), pg. 33.

Malaguzzi–Valeri, F., “Cesare da Sesto e un nuovo acquisto della Pinacoteca di Brera,” Rassegna D’Arte 8, no. 2 (February 1908), pg. 22, repr., pgs. 23–24.

Phillips, Claude. “St. John the Baptist, by Cesare Da Sesto.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 13, no. 61 (1908), pg. 37.

Borenius, Tancred, A catalogue of the paintings at Doughty House, Richmond & elsewhere in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook. London: William Heinemann, 1913, vol. I, pgs. 125–126, no. 108, pl. 12.

Frizzoni, Gustavo, “Certain Studies by Cesare Da Sesto in Relation to His Pictures,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 26, no. 143 (1915), pg. 188.

Suida, Wilhelm, “Leonardo da Vinci und seine Schule in Mailand,” in Monatshefte Für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 13, ed. G. Biermann, Leipzig: Verlag Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1920, pg. 258.

Suida, Wilhelm, Leonardo und Sein Kreis, Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1929, pg. 221.

Catalogue of Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, London: William Heinemann, 1932, pg. 33.

Abridged Catalogue of the Cook Collection, London: William Heinemann, 1932, no. 108, pg. 3, pl. 6.

Berenson, Bernard, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932, pg. 144.

Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Leipzig: Seemann, 1936, vol. 30, pg. 534.

Bottari, Stefano, “Un imitatore siciliano di Cesare da Sesto (Fra’ Gabriele de Volpe),” Emporium 111, no. 661 (1950), pgs. 25, 26, fig. 2, 28.

Suida, Wilhelm, The Samuel H. Kress Collection, San Francisco: M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, 1955, pg. 56, 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), pg. 279.

Frankfurter, Alfred, “The Kress Gift to San Francisco,” Art News 54, no. 2 (April 1955), pg. 43, repr.

Larsen, Erik, “The Samuel H. Kress Collection at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco,” Apollo 61, no. 364 (June 1955), pg. 174, repr. pg. 172.

Comstock, Helen, “The Connoisseur in America,” The Connoisseur 136, no. 547 (September 1955), pgs. 71–72.

Causa, Raffaello, Pittura Napoletana Dal XV Al XIX Secolo, Bergamo: Istituto italiano d'arti grafiche, 1957, pg. 19.

Bologna, Ferdinando, Roviale spagnolo e la pittura napoletana del Cinquecento, Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1959, pg. 67.

Susinno, Francesco, Le Vite de’ Pittori Messinesi (1742), ed. Valentino Martinelli, Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1960, pg. 39.

European Works of Art in the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, Berkeley: Diablo Press for De Young Museum Society, 1966, pg. 63, repr.

Davenport, William W., Art Treasures of the West, Menlo Park, CA: Lane Magazine & Book, 1966, pg. 226, repr.

Berenson, Bernard, 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, vol. 1, pg. 88; vol. 3, fig. 1508.

Shapley, Fern Rusk, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XV–XVI Century II, London: Phaidon Press, 1968, pgs. 135–136, fig. 323.

Burollet, Thérèse, “Cesare da Sesto,” in Praeger Encyclopedia of Art: Volume 1, Aachen–Chevotet, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971, pgs. 385–386.

Abbate, Francesco, “La pittura Napoletana fino all’arrivo di Giorgio Vasari (1544),” in La pittura napoletana del ‘500, eds. Francesco Abbate and Giovanni Previtali, Naples: Storia di Napoli, 1972, pg. 836.

Fredericksen, Burton B. and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre–Nineteenth–Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972, pgs. 51, 633.

Manning, Bertina Suida, “A Panorama of Italian Pictures,” Apollo 111, no. 217 (March 1980), repr. pg. 183, pgs. 184–185.

Torrini, Annalisa Perissa, “Un’ipotesi per La ‘cona Grande’ Di Cesare Da Sesto per San Michele Arcangelo a Baiano,” Prospettiva, no. 22 (1980), pg. 78, fig. 2.

Ghisalberti, Alberto M., ed., Dizionario Biografico Degli Italiani 24. Cerreto – Chini, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1980, pgs. 142–143.

Langdon, Helen, The Simon and Schuster Pocket Art Museum Guide, New York: Simon and Schuster 1981, pg. 155.

Zenale E Leonardo:Tradizione E Rinnovamento Della Pittura Lombarda, exh. cat., Milan: Electa, 1982, pg. 173.

Vezzosi, Alessandro, ed., Leonardo e il Leonardismo a Napoli E a Roma, exh. cat., Florence: Giunti Barbèra Editore, 1983, pg. 158, repr. pg. 159.

Giusti, Paola and Pierluigi Leone de Castris,“Forastieri e regnicoli," La pittura moderna a Napoli nel primo Cinquecento, Naples: Electa, 1985, pgs. 17, 137n56, 140, fig. 6.1, 143, 168–169nn1–9.

Torrini, Annalisa Perissa, “Cesare da Sesto: The Drawings in Venice,” in Leonardo & Venice, exh. cat., Milan: Bompiani, 1992, repr. pg 401, pgs. 402, 405nn31&43, 410, 414.

Pugliatti, Teresa, Pittura Del Cinquecento in Sicilia: La Sicilia Orientale, Naples: Electa, 1993, pg. 42, repr. pg. 43.

Carminati, Marco, Cesare Da Sesto 1477–1523, Milan: Jandi Sapi Editori, 1994, pgs. 159-162, repr.

Nova, Alessandro, Review of Cesare da Sesto 1477–1523 by Marco Carminati, The Burlington Magazine 139, no. 1132 (1997), pg. 483.

Giannattasio, Paolo, “Sulla difficile relazione fra disegni e dipinti. Intorno a Cesare da Sesto, Pedro Fernández e Vincenzo da Pavia,” Dialoghi di Storia dell’Arte, no. 8/9 (December 1999), pgs. 35-36.

Nash, Steven A., Lynn Federle Orr, and Marion C. Stewart, eds., Masterworks of European Painting in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1999, pgs. 47-48, repr., entry by Lynn Federle Orr.

Campbell, Stephen J., The Endless Periphery: Towards a Geopolitics of Art in Lorenzo Lotto’s Italy, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019, pgs. 69, 72, fig. 3.11.

“Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint George,” Kress Collection Digital Archive: https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2922.

“Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint George,” Kress Paintings Conservation, https://www.kressconservation.org/conserved–artwork/artwork/3d4f94b430b70e42afb361a8c8ff76d8977d53699aff12b53d8e7b23c785bf5e.