Corrado Giaquinto championed a style characterized by sumptuous color, exquisite surface finish and decorative appeal. In 1762, he embarked on the decoration of the new sacristy of the Church of San Luigi di Palazzo in Naples, in which this Marriage of the Virgin figured. Symbols throughout the composition refer to the Virgin’s pious nature, including the star woven into the carpet on which she stands, and the gold-plated, wooden chest above the altar, which situates the marriage rite in the Temple of Jerusalem. Joseph gently places a ring on a finger of her right hand. The flowering staff in his left hand foretells his role as the earthly father of Jesus.
In this classicizing composition, with its emphasis on the expressive, statuesque figures of Mary and Joseph at the moment of their union, Giaquinto has embodied the devotional quality and formal stability of the Italian Grand Manner.
Details
- Artist Name: Corrado Giaquinto (Italian, 1703-1766)
- Title: The Marriage of the Virgin
- Date: 1764-65
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 112-1/4 x 71-3/8 in. (285.1 x 181.3 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1975.27.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
William Noel Hill, third Lord Berwick (Ambassador to Naples 1824-1833), Redrice, near Andover, Hampshire, ca. 1833, by descent in the family until sold in the 1860s.
Purchased by a cleric associated with the Catholic Church in Taunton, Massachusetts, taken to Boston and sold by him at auction in 1869 to;
Greely Stevenson Curtis, Boston, by descent to his wife;
Harriet Appleton Curtis and heirs, Boston (sale, London, Christie’s, 28 November 1975, lot 49);
[P. & D. Colnaghi, London, for];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[on loan]
- Detroit Institute of Arts, 1976-08 to ?-
Reinstallation of Galleries: Art History of the 17th and 18th Century Gains Fresh Dimension
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-09-02 to 1995-08-13
- Sigismondo, Giuseppe, Descrizione della cita di Napoli e i suoi borghi, 1788, p. 332
- Maxon, J. and J. Rishel, Painting in Italy in the 18th Century: Rococo to Romanticism, 1970, no. 95 p. 226
- Civilta di Napoli, 1734-1799, 1979, no. 163a
- Cioffi, Irene, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1980, pp. 5-6, 11-12
- The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization under the Bourbons, 1734-1805, 1980, no. 25a
- Trafalgar Galleries, Trafalgar Galleries at the Royal Academy III, 1983, p. 89
- Hersey, George; and C. B. Cappel, A Taste for Angels: Neapolitan Painting in North America 1650-1750, 1987,
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 102
- Bissel, R. Ward, Andria Derstine, and Dwight Miller, Masters of Italian Baroque Painting n the Detroit Institute of Arts, 2004, fig. 1 pp. 94 - 97
- Patrimonio Nacional, Corrado Giaquinto y Espana, 2006, fig. 7 p. 30
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1294 p. 391
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