About the Artwork
Poetic in conception and innovative in composition, this painting is a masterpiece of Sienese fifteenth-century painting. In this scene, the still sleepy soldiers are amazed to see the risen Christ float gloriously above the sealed sarcophagus, holding the banner of victory and the olive branch of peace. The extensive landscape is both naturalistic and symbolic: the Resurrection is equated with the sunrise, perhaps the first such depiction in Italian painting. Originally this was one of five small panels of an altarpiece dedicated to the Passion of Christ.
Paintings of this time were not signed, so names of artists are frequently unknown. This artist is called the Master of the Osservanza from a triptych he painted in the Church of the Osservanza near Siena.
The Resurrection
ca. between 1440 and 1445
Master of the Osservanza
active ca. 1440-1480
Italian
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Tempera on wood panel
Unframed: 14 3/16 × 17 7/16 inches (36 × 44.3 cm) Framed: 18 1/4 × 24 × 2 1/2 inches (46.4 × 61 × 6.4 cm)
Paintings
European Painting
Founders Society Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford II Fund
60.61
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
possibly William Blundell Spence [active 1858] (Florence, Italy).possibly property of a Religious Order (London, England);
June 24, 1959, lot 64 sold by (Sotheby’s, London, England) “Old Master Paintings”;
1959–1960, purchased by (Thomas Agnew and Sons, Ltd., London, England) [1817–2013];
1960, purchased by (Pinakos, Inc., New York, New York, USA);
1960–present, purchase Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Important Old Master Paintings. Sales cat., Sotheby’s, London, June 24, 1959, pp. 40–41, no. 64 (ill.).
Richardson, Edgar P. "The Resurrection by the Master of the Osservanza." Bulletin of the DIA 39, no. 3/4 (1959–1960): pp. 75–77 (ill.).
Carli, Enzo. "A 'Resurrection' by the Master of the Osservanza." Art Quarterly 23, no. 4 (Winter 1960): pp. 333–340.
"Gifts and Purchases: Recent Acquisitions in American Museums." New York Times, March 27, 1960, p. 404 (ill.).
Laclotte, Michel. “Sassetta, le Maître de l’Observance et Sano di Pietro: Un problème critique.” L’Information d’histoire de l’art 5, no. 2 (March/April 1960): pp. 46–53, pp. 51–53 (ill.).
The Institute Collects: A Selective Survey of the Additions to the Collection 1959–1964. Detroit, 1965, p. 14.
Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: A Check List of the Paintings Acquired before June, 1965. Detroit, 1965, p. 72.
Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: A Check List of the Paintings Acquired before January, 1967. Detroit, 1966, p. 67 (ill.).
Treasures from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1966, p. 67 (ill.).
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, vol. 1. London, 1968, p. 253.
Cummings, Frederick J. and Charles H. Elam, eds. The Detroit Institute of Arts Illustrated Handbook. Detroit, 1971, p. 77 (ill.).
Fredericksen, Burton B. and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972, p. 132.
Selected Works from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1979, p. 63 (ill.).
Fleming, John. "Art Dealing in the Risorgimento II." Burlington Magazine 121, no. 917 (August 1979): pp. 492–508, pp. 503–504, n. 67. [mentions reference by Spence to an "Ascension" by Sassetta, which Fleming suggests may actually be DIA's "Resurrection"]
Fleming, John. "Art Dealing in the Risorgimento III." Burlington Magazine 121, no. 918 (September 1979): pp. 568–580, p. 580 [checklist of works handled by William Blundell Spence, and referred to by him as a Sassetta showing "Our Saviour rising from the sepulchre in a cloud of gold."]
Os, Henk van, Sienese Altarpieces 1215–1460: Form, Content, Function, vol. 2. Groningen, 1984, pp. 111–112 (ill.).
Christiansen, Keith, Laurence B. Kanter and Carl Brandon Strehlke. Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420–1500. Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1988, pp. 134–135, no. 12d (ill.).
Hood, William. "Sienese Quattrocento Painting." The Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1032 (March 1989): pp. 241–244 (ill.).
Christiansen, Keith. "Notes on 'Painting in Renaissance Siena.'" Burlington Magazine 132, no. 1044 (March 1990): pp. 205–213, pp. 207–209 (ill.).
Henshaw, Julia, ed. A Visitor's Guide: The Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1996, p. 177 (ill.).
Sani, Bernadina. “Il Cinquecento e il Seicento” in Pittura senese, ed. Federico Motta. Milan, 1997, p. 231.
Dini, Giulietta Chelazzi. “The Fifteenth Century: the Shadow of the Renaissance.” In Sienese Painting: From Duccio to the Birth of the Baroque. New York, 1998, p. 232.
Strehlke, Carl Brandon. Italian Paintings 1250–1450: In the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2004, p. 298; p. 300 (ill.); p. 302, pl. 52.8 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Master of the Osservanza, The Resurrection, ca. between 1440 and 1445, tempera on wood panel. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford II Fund, 60.61.
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