Madonna and Child with St. Nicholas of Bari and a Bishop Saint

Hovering on a bank of clouds over a distant landscape, the Madonna and Child are seated between two bishop saints, each wearing elaborately patterned vestments. Nicholas of Bari, at the right, is identifiable by the three gold balls at his feet. According to his legend, Nicholas anonymously donated the gold to three young girls whose father was too poor to afford their dowry. The bishop saint at the left does not carry any distinctive attributes and is therefore unidentifiable. Two cherubim, from one the highest, literally disembodied, ranks of angels surrounding God, appear in the upper corners of the painting while a third materializes from the clouds at the Madonna’s feet.

The artist who painted this large altarpiece is unknown but he seems to have been from Perugia, a bustling hill town in the central Italian region of Umbria. The elegant, linear style and the strong emphasis on pattern and ornament show similarities with the work of Pinturicchio (ca. 1452-1513), a native of Perugia and whose many pupils and followers continued to work there well into the mid-1500s.

Inscription

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Bernard Berenson [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1910 (?) [mode of acquisition unknown] [through Berenson]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.