Skip to main content
Advanced Search
Altarpiece: The Holy Family and Saints
Altarpiece: The Holy Family and Saints
Image © Worcester Art Museum, all rights reserved.

Altarpiece: The Holy Family and Saints

Artist (Italian, 1470–about 1538)
Dateearly 1500s
Mediumoil on panel
Dimensions227 x 171.7 cm (89 3/8 x 67 5/8 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineTheodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection
Terms
Object number1940.64
Label TextNiccolo was first recorded at Pisa, then in 1499 at Ferrara, where he worked for many years, then at Bologna, and later at Pisa once again. The first painters to influence him were the Florentines Domeico Ghirlandaio and Benozzo Gozzoli, but later Ferrarse and Venetian works strongly affected his style. This altarpiece shows the Madonna with Saint Joseph and the Infant Christ accompanied by five saints identified as the patron saints of stonemasons. According to an inscription on one of the stones, the donor of the altarpiece was Giovanni Andrea de' Gilardoni, a Ferraran stonemason. The altarpiece is recorded as coming from the church of Saint Niccolo in Ferrara, where it remained until sometime around 1800. When the painting was removed from the church it entered the Ferraran collection of Giovanni Battista Costabili whose initials are branded into the back. The painting was eventually acquired by Worcester's most distinguished collector of Old Master paintings, Theodore T. Ellis, whose widow bequeathed their entire collection to the Museum in 1940.ProvenanceCommissioned by Giovanni Andrea de’ Gilardoni (d. 1559); by descent in the Gilardoni family until at least 1710, at which time it was recorded as the altarpiece in the transept of the church of S. Niccolò at Ferrara; ownership passed to the dalla Fabbra family by 1725, still probably located in the church of S. Niccolò; church of S. Niccolò disaffected around 1800 and the picture passed into the collection of Giovanni Battista Costabili at Ferrara by 1838; sold to Ivor Bertie Guest (created Lord Wimborne in 1880, died. 1914), Canford Manor, England, 1866; Viscount Wimborne Sale, Christie’s, London, March 9, 1923, lot 20, bought by Mason; Cornelia Lady Wimborne sale at Merly House, Wimborne, by Puttick & Simpson, June 8, 1927, lot 129, bought by R. Langton Douglas; acquired by Theodore T. Ellis, about 1932–1934; bequeathed to his wife, Mary G. Ellis, 1934; bequeathed to the Worcester Art Museum as part of the Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection, 1940.
On View
On view
Collections