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Gallery Text

This painting may have been part of the most influential and important group of altarpieces painted in Siena in the fourteenth century. The city’s cathedral was dedicated to the Virgin, and altarpieces depicting episodes from her life were commissioned from various artists for its chapels honoring Sienese patron saints. Documents confirm that a painting of the Nativity was part of a series that also included Pietro Lorenzetti’s Birth of the Virgin, Simone Martini’s Annunciation, and Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Purification. The Adoration, the last to be completed, was the central panel of the altar of Saint Victor. Among the many things that distinguish this series is the introduction of narrative subjects to the central image of large altarpieces. This work is clearly a fragment of a larger painting (note the severed hand on the right), and its original wooden support was removed and replaced with a modern backing.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1917.89
People
Bartolommeo Bulgarini, Italian (active 1337 - 1378)
Title
The Adoration of the Shepherds
Other Titles
Former Title: The Nativity
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1350
Places
Creation Place: Europe, Italy, Tuscany, Siena
Culture
Italian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/232007

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Tempera on panel
Dimensions
172.4 x 123.2 cm (67 7/8 x 48 1/2 in.)
frame: 212.7 x 142.2 cm (83 3/4 x 56 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Dr. Bonnal, Nice. Giuseppe Grassi, Rome (?). [Duveen Brothers, New York, sold]; to Fogg Art Museum, 1917.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Friends of the Fogg Art Museum Fund and Henry Goldman Fund
Accession Year
1917
Object Number
1917.89
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Bernard Berenson, Essays in the Study of Sienese Painting, Frederic Fairchild Sherman (New York, 1918), pp. 1-6, repr., fig. 1 as Ugolino Lorenzetti
  • Giacomo de Nicola, Studi Sull'arte Senese. III - I saggi senesi del Berenson., Rassegna d'Arte, Alfieri & Lacroix (Milan, 1919), vol. 19, pp. 95-102, p. 96
  • Duveen Brothers, Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America: A Catalogue Raisonné with Three Hundred Illustrations of Paintings by the Great Masters, which have passed through the House of Duveen, William Bradford Press (New York, 1941), cat. no. 17, as by Ugolino Lorenzetti
  • Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1972), p. 133 [as by Master of the Ovile Madonna]
  • David Kolch, "Reconstruction System for Panel Painting Supports: A Review and Evaluation of Treatments in the Fogg Museum Laboratory, 1927-1952" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies , August 1977), Unpublished, pp. 1-60 passim
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), pp. 100, 285, repr. b/w cat. no. 493
  • Diana Norman, Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1999), pp. 68-71, 74-75; repr. as fig. 76
  • Andrea Kirsh and Rustin S. Levenson, Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in art Historical Studies, Yale University Press (New Haven, 2000), pp. 21-22, no. 20, repr. in b/w
  • Monika Butzek, "Le pale di Sant' Ansane e degli altri protettori della città nel Duomo di Siena: Una storia documentaria", Silvana Editoriale (Milan, Italy, 2001), p. 38; repr. in b/w as fig. 4, p. 42
  • Hayden B.J. Maginnis, The World of the Early Sienese Painter, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA, 2001), p. 139; repr. as fig. 27
  • Diana Norman, Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, and London, 2003), pp. 113, 115-116
  • Troels Filtenborg, "Maletekniske undersøgelser af to helgenbilleder fra Skt. Victor-altertaveln i Sienas domkirke", SMK Art Journal, Statens Museum for Kunst (Copenhagen, 2005), p. 83, ill. p. 85 fig. 2
  • Jochen Sander, "Altarbilder fur den Dom von Siena", Kult Bild: Das Altar- und Andachtsbild von Duccio bis Perugino, Michael Imhof-Verlag and Städelsches Kunstinstitut (Petersberg, Germany, 2006), pp. 61-83, p. 78, repr. in b/w p. 80 as fig. 40, with diagram of original schema
  • Francesca Bewer, A Laboratory for Art: Harvard's Fogg Museum and the Emergence of Conservation in America, 1900-1950, Harvard Art Museum and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA, 2010), p. 168-69, fig. 4.14
  • Mária Prokopp and Károly Tóth, Kettös Kötödésben: Péter András (1903-1944), Életmüve: Írások A Régi És A Kortárs Müvészetröl, Péter András Alapítvány (Budapest, 2014), pp. 189-90, fig. 13
  • Alessandro Bagnoli, Roberto Bartalini, and Max Seidel, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, exh. cat., Silvana Editoriale (Siena, 2017), pp. 428, 432-434, repr. p. 433 as fig. 4
  • Giulia Puma, Les Nativités italiennes (1250-1450): Une historie d'adoration, École Française de Rome (Rome, 2019), pp. 168-175, 179, 184, repr. p. 169 as fig. 169
  • Chloe R. Reddaway, Strangeness and Recognition, Brepols Publisher (Turnhout, Belgium, 2019), pp. 123-129; repr. as pl. 34 on p. 127

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 2500 Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 07/18/2018

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu