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The Nativity and the Annunciation to the Shepherds
Bernardo Daddi (Italian (Florentine), active about 1320–1348)
about 1336
Medium/Technique
Tempera on panel
Dimensions
38.1 x 18.4 cm (15 x 7 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Francis H. Burr in memory of William A. Coolidge
Accession Number1994.427
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Daddi was the most important painter in Florence in the generation following that of Giotto. This beautifully preserved painting demonstrates Daddi's ability to convey worlds of narrative and emotion on a small scale. Although diminutive, the figures possess an impressive delicacy and seriousness of purpose. The artist unified the different episodes with a continuous landscape setting that recedes in orderly stages. The panel's original function is not known; it may have served as a folding door on a reliquary cupboard.
ProvenancePhilip J. Gentner (b. 1872 - d. by 1942), Florence; December 1942, probably sold with the Gentner collection to Eugenio Ventura (dealer; b. 1887 - d. 1949), Florence [see note 1]. About 1956, sold from a private collection, Florence, to Pinakos, Inc. (dealer Rudolf Heinemann, b. 1902 - d. 1975); January 16, 1957, sold by Pinakos to M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., Paris, London and New York (stock no. A6547) [see note 2]; September 5, 1957, sold by Knoedler to William A. Coolidge (b. 1901 - d. 1992), Topsfield and Cambridge, MA; to the co-executor of his estate, Francis H. Burr, Boston; 1994, year-end gift of Mr. and Mrs. Francis H. Burr to the MFA. (Accession Date: January 26, 1995)
NOTES:
[1] The painting was first published as "The Ventura Tabernacle Shutter" by Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, section III, vol. 8 (New York, 1958), pp. 91-92, who states that Eugenio Ventura acquired it from the Gentner collection, according to Ventura's widow. On the posthumous sale of Gentner's collection to Ventura in 1942, see Caterina Zaru, "The Affaire Ventura: Antiquarians and Collaborators during and after the Second World War," Studi di Memofonte 22 (2019): p. 212.
[2] According to a letter from E. Coe Kerr, Jr., President, Knoedler, to William A. Coolidge (June 27, 1957), Knoedler purchased the painting "from an agent who discovered it in Europe last year" in an unnamed private collection. In a translated letter of authentication by Roberto Longhi in the MFA curatorial files (June 23, 1957), Longhi states that he had known the picture "for many years," since the time "when it was in Florence in a [private] collection."
NOTES:
[1] The painting was first published as "The Ventura Tabernacle Shutter" by Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, section III, vol. 8 (New York, 1958), pp. 91-92, who states that Eugenio Ventura acquired it from the Gentner collection, according to Ventura's widow. On the posthumous sale of Gentner's collection to Ventura in 1942, see Caterina Zaru, "The Affaire Ventura: Antiquarians and Collaborators during and after the Second World War," Studi di Memofonte 22 (2019): p. 212.
[2] According to a letter from E. Coe Kerr, Jr., President, Knoedler, to William A. Coolidge (June 27, 1957), Knoedler purchased the painting "from an agent who discovered it in Europe last year" in an unnamed private collection. In a translated letter of authentication by Roberto Longhi in the MFA curatorial files (June 23, 1957), Longhi states that he had known the picture "for many years," since the time "when it was in Florence in a [private] collection."