Bartolommeo di Giovanni
Italian, fl. c. 1465-1501

Scenes from the Life of Saint John the Baptist, 1490/95

Tempera on panel (poplar)
74 x 150.4 cm; 29 3/16 x 59 3/16"
Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1937.996

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

The University of Chicago, The Renaissance Society, Old and New Masters of Religious Art, 1931, no. 78.

The University of Chicago, The Renaissance Society, Commemorative Exhibition from the Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1932, no. 8.

Art Instititute of Chicago, New Light on Old Masters: Early Italian Paintings in the Art Institute, 1993, no cat.

Publication History

The Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection, 1925, p. 159, no. 2027.

Raimond van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague, 1931, vol. 12, p. 441 n. 2, vol. 13, p. 122, fig. 76.

Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1932, p. 6,

Bernard Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento, Milan, 1936, p. 5.

William R. Valentiner, Paintings in the Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, unpub. MS [1932]. Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago, n. pag.

Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, “Giovannino Battista: A Study in Renaissance Relgious Symbolism,” Art Bulletin 37 (1955), pp. 88 n. 23, 98 n. 81.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, Chicago, 1961, p. 18.

Gerhard Eimer, “Bartolommeo de Giovanni and the Urbino Bible in The Vatican Library,” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 35 (1966), p. 64, fig. 14.

Art Institute of Chicago, Grands Musées 2, Paris [1968], pp. 24 (ill.), 67.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972, pp. 16, 416, 571.

Everrett Fahy, Some Followers of Domenico Ghirlandajo, New York and London, 1976, pp. 132–33, no. 18, p. 156.

Christopher Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago; A Catalogue of the Collection, Chicago, 1993, pp. 17-21, ill.

Glad Tidings of Great Joy. Christmas at the Art Institute, Chicago, 1993, pp. 14–15, ill., 39.

Graham Hughes, Renaissance Cassoni: Masterpieces of Early Italian Art: Painted Marriage Chests, 1400–1550, London, 1997, p. 176.

Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy, New Haven and London, 1999, pp. 53-54, fig. 38.

Ownership History

Possibly part of a suite of decorations belonging to Francesco di Bonacorso Pitti, Florence, from 1494 [based on arms in a related panel in National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; see Lloyd 1993, p. 20]. Luigi Grassi, Florence, by 1924 [bill of sale dated March 18, 1924 in curatorial file]; sold to Martin A. Ryerson (died 1932), Chicago, 1924; on loan to the Art Institute, 1924; by descent to his widow (died 1937); bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1937.