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Adoration of the Child with St. Benedict and Angels, ca. 1478

  • Vincenzo Foppa, Italian, 1427-1516

Tempera on canvas and honeycomb aluminum panel, transferred from wood panel

  • Unframed: 56 1/2 × 43 1/4 inches (143.5 × 109.9 cm)

Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence P. Fisher

68.294

Signed, on stone step, lower left: VINCEN | TIUS. DE | FOPPA. P.

Rome, Collection Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839) 1841

Rome, auction, Collection Cardinal Fesch, (Georges), 17-18 March 1845, lot 909

Versailles, Collection Nottret, honorary canon and almoner to the Augustinian nuns

By descent to Versailles, Collection Abbé Lefèvre, before 1909 and after 1916

Versailles, Collection Abbé Thuelin, 1927

New York, Howard Young (dealer)

Detroit, Collection Lawrence P. Fisher (acquired before 1930) by whom bequeathed to the DIA in 1968.

Catalogue des Tableaux Composant la Galerie de Feu Son Eminence le Cardinal Fesch. Rome, 1841, p. 58, no. 1300. [as "La Créche de Notre Seigneur"] Galerie de Feu S.E. le Cardinal Fesch, Catalogue des Tableaux des Écoles Italiennes et Espagnole. Sales cat., Palais Ricci, Rome, March 17–18, 1945, p. 209, no. 909 [as "La Nativité"] Ffoulkes, Constance Jocelyn and Rodolfo Maiocchi. Vincenzo Foppa of Brescia, Founder of the Lombard School, His Life and Work. London, 1909, pp. 210–213 (ill.), 249, 267–268. Crowe, Joseph Archer and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in North Italy, vol. 2, ed. Tancred Borenius. London, 1912, p. 327, note. [as in the collection of M. L’Abbé Lefrève] Pauli, G[ustav]. "Vincenzo Foppa" In Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler 12, ed. Hans Vollmer et al. Leipzig, 1916, p. 197. [as in the collection of Abbé Lefèvre, Versailles] Heil, Walter. "The Lawrence P. Fisher Collection in Detroit." Antiquarian 15 (December 1930): 45–47, 108, 110, 112; p. 45. Venturi, Lionello. Italian Pictures in America, vol. 2. New York, 1933, unpaginated, no. 436 (ill.) [Dated after 1500] The Sixteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Italian Paintings of the XIV to XVI Century. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1933, unpaginated, no. 84 (ill.). Berenson, Bernard. Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 171. [as "Natività con Santo Monaco"] Hind, Arthur M. Early Italian Engraving, vol. 1. London, 1938, p. 273. Wittgens, Fernarda. Vincenzo Foppa. Milan, 1948, pp. 63, 98. Panazza, Gaetano. "Vetrate Pavesi." Critica d'Arte 9, no. 9 (May 1955): 252–255, p. 254, n. 8. Arte lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza. Exh. cat., Palazzo Reale. Milan, 1958, p. 106. 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, vol. 1. London, 1968, p. 136. [as in the collection of Lawrence P. Fisher] Ruggeri, Ugo. Disegni Lombardi. Milan, 1982, p. 23. [discusses 15th century drawing after, first associated with Lombard school by Hind in 1938, and then to Foppa] Welch, E. Samuels. "Vincenzo Foppa." In Dictionary of Art 11, ed. Jane Turner. New York, 1996, p. 293. [dated second half of the 1470s] Balzarini, Maria Grazia. Vincenzo Foppa. Milan, 1997, pp. 29, 32, 101, pl. 52 (ill.); p. 164, no. 28 (ill.). [dated ca. 1475; cf. drawing in Accademia, Venice] Klumpp, Axel. Vincenzo Foppa (ca. 1430–1515/16), vol. 2. Berlin, 2002, no. A7, pp. 460–463. [as by workshop of Vincenzo Foppa; dated 1490s or later] Urry, Serena. "Technical Findings in Vincenzo Foppa's Adoration of the Child with Saint Benedict and Angels." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 78, no. 1/2 (2004): 30–39, pp. 30–39 (ill.).

Vincenzo Foppa, Adoration of the Child with St. Benedict and Angels, ca. 1478, tempera on canvas and honeycomb aluminum panel, transferred from wood panel. Detroit Institute of Arts, Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence P. Fisher, 68.294.