Object details
Accession number
P15s4
Primary Creator
Cosmè Tura
(Ferrara, about 1430 - 1495, Ferrara)
Full title
Saint Lucy and Saint Eutychia at the Shrine of Saint Agatha
Creation Date
1480-1489
Provenance
Possibly the collection of Cardinal Desiderio Scaglia (1567-1639), Rome.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the collector and dealer Michelangelo Guggenheim (1837-1914), Venice for 600 (?) lire on 28 September 1897 (as "Laura and Petrarch," Paduan school), on the recommendation of the American art historian Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), who attributed it to the Ferrarese painter Francesco del Cossa (about 1430-about 1477).
Marks
Inscribed (on paper affixed to the panel, verso): Era il giorno ch’al sol si scoloraro / Per la pietà del suo Fattore [sic] i rai, / Quand' ì fui preso, e' non me ne guardai, / Chè i bè vostr’occhi, Donna, mi legaro. // Tempo non mi parea da far riparo / Contra colpi d’Amor: però n’andai [sic] / Secur, senza sospetto: onde i miei guai / Nel commun [sic] dolor s’incominciaro. // Trovommi Amor del tutto disarmato, / E d [sic] aperta la via pegli [sic] occhi al core; / Che di lagrime son fatti uscio, e [sic] varco. // Però, al mio parer, non li fu honore / Ferir me di [sic] saetta in quello stato, / E [sic] a voi armata non mostrar pur l’arco. (It was the day the sun’s ray had turned pale with pity for the suffering of his Maker when I was caught, and I put up no fight, my lady, for your lovely eyes had bound me. It seemed no time to be on guard against Love’s blows; therefore, I went my way secure and fearless-so, all my misfortunes began in midst of universal woe. Love found me all disarmed and found the way was clear to reach my heart down through the eyes which have become the halls and doors of tears. It seems to me it did him little honour to wound me with his arrow in my state and to you, armed, not show his bow at all.) (Canzoniere no. 3 in Mark Musa, trans. Petrarch: Selections from the Canzoniere and Other Works (Oxford, 1995), p. 23.)
Inscribed (on the panel, verso): 104
Inscribed (on a sticker affixed to the panel, upper left, verso): [illegible]
Dimensions
43.4 x 32.1 cm (17 1/16 x 12 5/8 in.)
Display Media
Oil on panel
Web Commentary
Isabella Stewart Gardner kept meticulous records of many of her acquisitions. In keeping with this legacy, object information is continually being reviewed, updated, and enriched in order to give greater access to the collection.
Permanent Gallery Location
Early Italian Room
Bibliography
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), p. 9. (as by Francesco del Cossa)
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1914 or later), p. 4. (entitled "Catherine Sforza Praying at the Tomb of a Saint"; as by Leonardo Scaletti)
Philip Hendy. "Antonio Cicognara." Art in America, vol. 19 (1930-1931), p. 55. (entitled "A Prayer before a Tomb"; as by Cicognara)
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), pp. 92-93, ill. (entitled "A Prayer before a Tomb"; as by Cicognara, as before 1490)
Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and their Works with an Index of Places (Oxford, 1932), p. 515. (entitled "Young and Old Woman Praying before a Tomb"; as by Scaletti)
Roberto Longhi. Officina ferrarese (Rome, 1934), pp. 166-67. (as by Cicognara)
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 88. (entitled "A Prayer before a Tomb"; as by Cicognara, probably about 1485; "it is also attributed to Leonardo Scaletti")
Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà. "Antonio Cicognara again." Art in America, vol. 25 (1937), p. 64. (as by Cicognara)
Carlo Ragghianti. "Mostra d'arte antica italiana a Budapest." Critica d'Arte vol. 14 (1938), pp. ii-iii. (as by Cicognara)
Burton B. Fredericksen and Frederico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, 1972), p. 52. (entitled "St. Lucy and Mother at Tomb of St. Agatha"; as by Cicogonara)
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 54-55, ill. (the subject as Saint Lucy with her mother before the tomb of Saint Agatha; as by Cicogonara, similar to his altarpiece of 1490)
Miklós Boskovits. "Una scheda e qualche suggerimento per un catalogo dei dipinti ai Tatti." Antichità Viva, vol. 14 (1975), pp. 19-20. (as by Cicognara; as related to The Burial of Saint Lucy, now housed at the Villa I Tatti, Fiesole)
Federico Zeri et al. La raccolta Morelli nell'Accademia Carrara (Bergamo, 1986), pp. 172-74. (as related to the I Tatti Saint Lucy and the Saint Catherine, now housed at the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, here attributed to Cicognara?)
Rollin van N. Hadley (ed.). The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner 1887-1924 (Boston, 1987), pp. 414-16, 520-21, 523-25.
Kristen Lippincott. "Gli affreschi del Salone dei Mesi e il problem dell'attribuzione" in Ranieri Varese (ed.). Atlante di Schifanoia (Modena, 1989), pp. 121-30. (as by Cicognara)
Laura Malaspina et al. "Per Antonio Cicognara." Arte Cristiana, vol. 82 (1994), pp. 108, 117-18, fig. 22. (entitled "Saint Lucy on Pilgrimage with her Mother to the Tomb of Saint Agatha"; as by Cicognara; as related to the I Tatti Saint Lucy)
Kristen Lippincott. "Antonio Cicognara" in Jane Turner (ed.). The Dictionary of Art, vol. 7 (London, 1996), p. 306. (as by Cicognara)
Stephen Campbell and Alan Chong. Cosmè Tura: Painting and Design in Renaissance Ferrara. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2002), pp. 173, 176-77, 179, 183, 195, 263-68, figs. 84, 106, no. 21. (entitled "Saint Lucy and Saint Eutychia at the Shrine of Saint Agatha"; as by a follower of Cosmè Tura, influenced by Cossa, perhaps 1480s; as by the same hand as the I Tatti Saint Lucy and the Bergamo Saint Catherine, see figs. 102-03)
Carl Brandon Strehlke and Machtelt Brüggen Israëls. The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection of European Paintings at Villa I Tatti (Milan, 2015), pp. 199-202, fig. 23.1, no. 23. (as Antonio Cicognara, dated about 1490)
Giovanni Valagussa et al. Accademia Carrara di Bergamo: dipinti del Trecento e del Quatrocento: catalogo completo (Milan: Officina libraria, 2018), p. 192.
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