The Adoration of the Kings
Bonifazio de' Pitati (Verona 1487 – Venice 1553)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1500 - 1553
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
685 x 1170 mm
Place of origin
Venice
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486220
Caption
The format of this picture and with the landscape background and vibrant use of colour is typical of Venetian painting at the time. It was once attributed to Giorgione, and then Titian, but stylistically it is closer to their follower, Bonifazio. The fact that the Moorish King Balthazar stands at the extreme left, cut by the edge of the picture, implies that at some stage it must have been reduced at the left. If the addition of 4 inches at the top was a later innovation and not a replacement, the composition must originally have suggested even more the effect of a frieze than it does at present.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Adoration of the Kings, by Bonifazio de' Pitati (Verona 1487 – Venice 1553). At centre, the Madonna in rose and dark green, is seated, with the Child on her knee. Two of the Kings kneel, in gold-brown and brown and gold on the left and right-hand side (though the right-hand king may be Joseph). At left, the third advances holding his offering, his cap in his right hand and wearing a ruby-red cloak, scarlet hose and brown buskins. Under an arch, in the background at right, can be seen Joseph (?) and the ass; a tree is in the left background.
Provenance
Probably acquired by Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland (1602-1668) as seen by John Evelyn, mentioned in his Diary on 9 June 1658 in Suffolk House, and thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by HM Treasury
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Bonifazio de' Pitati (Verona 1487 – Venice 1553), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Giorgione (Castelfranco c.1477 - Venice 1510), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 - Venice 1576), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Italian (Venetian) School , artist