Presentation of the Virgin Mary,
oil on panel, 55,5 x 80,5 cm, framed

Verso with adhesive label inscribed: 25.340. Masaccio. Gesù presentato al Tempio

Provenance:
Giovanni Andrea de Marinis, Marchese of Genzano (1755–1824), Naples before 1824 (as Masaccio);
inherited by Maria Costanza de Marinis, married to Giuseppe de Sangro (1776–1837), 3rd Prince of Fondi, Naples;
Collection de Sangro till 1895;
inherited by the current owner

Documentation:
1824 inventory, Archivio di Stato di Napoli, Archivio de Sangro, Copia dell’Inventario de’ beni del fu Ecc. M.se di Genzano, Giovanni Andrea de Marini: “La Vergine che presenta il Bambino al vecchio Simeone”, sopra tavola (ed. M. Sevarese 2006)

Literature:
M. Savarese, La collezione de Sangro dei principi di Fondi in tre inediti inventari di famiglia: da quadreria seicentesca a moderna raccolta di arti decorative, in: Napoli nobilissima, 7.2006, 5/6, p 200

We are grateful to Alessandro Tomei for his assistance in cataloguing the painting at hand after inspecting it in the original.

This painting is part of the prestigious Neapolitan collection of Giovanni Andrea de Marinis, Marchese von Genzano (1755–1824), whose collection of paintings was admired by travellers visiting Naples during their ‘Grand Tour’ and was also described by contemporary writers (cf. G. Manieri Elia, La quadreria napoletana de Marinis-de Sangro dall’influenza del classicismo romano al dissolvimento del collezionismo aristocratico, in: E. Debenedetti, Collezionismo e ideologia: mecenati, artisti, teorici dal classico al neoclassico, Rome 1991, p 307-337). When the Marchese died in 1824, he left his entire estate to his daughter Maria Costanza, who later married Giuseppe de Sangro, Prince of Fondi. The painting remained in the collection of the Princes of Fondi until 1895 and was passed on to the current owners via inheritance.

The landscape in the background of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary at the temple clearly appears to be of Venetian origin in its juxtaposition of mountains, a walled and turreted city, and an expanse of water. The atmosphere is peaceful, the light soft and warm. The figures inhabiting the scene (fltr: Joseph, the Virgin, Simeon the Priest, Anna the Prophetess, next to the child and a priest holding a censer, inside a building) are rendered in subtle transitions of colour with occasional parts heightened in white. Joseph’s unusual headgear appears to follow a Flemish model.

The painting’s formal characteristics indicate its origin on the Venetian mainland, probably from the circle of Andrea Cordegliaghi, known as Previtali, a painter from the Bergamo region (Berbenno di Valtellina ca. 1470–1528 Bergamo), who studied with Giovanni Bellini in Venice, whose student he claimed to be in an inscription in Virgin Enthroned between Saints Sebastian and Thomas Aquinas (Pinacoteca Carrara, Bergamo, signed and dated 1506). The present Presentation of the Virgin Mary was inspired by the work of Previtali, e.g. the Mystical Marriage of St Catherine, with saints, at the Pinacoteca Carrara, and the Altarpiece with St Benedict, at Bergamo Cathedral, dated 1525, reinterpreted in a more tranquil, more intimate mood.