About This Artwork

Bernard van Orley, workshop of
Netherlandish, c. 1488–1541

Pentecost, 1520/25

Oil on panel
119 x 93.5 cm (46 7/8 x 36 3/4 in.); painted surface 117 x 92 cm (46 1/8 x 36 1/4 in.)
Restricted Gift of Silvain and Arma Wyler Foundation, 1972.1136

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Publication History

John David Farmer, “A Painting of The Pentecost by Bernard van Orley,” AIC Bulletin 67 (1973), pp. 16–19 (ill.).

“Recent Acquisitions of American and Canadian Museums,” Art Quarterly 36 (1973), pp. 268, 279 (ill.).

D[aniel] W[ildenstein], “La Chronique des arts,” Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 83 (1974), pp. 114–15, no. 376 (ill.).

John David Farmer, “Bernard van Orley of Brussels,” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1981, pp. 179–80, 254, 342.

Guy Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America, Antwerp, 1992, p. 355, no. 363 (ill.).

Ownership History

Probably Archbishop’s House, Diocese of Westminster, London, until 1971 [according to Julius Weitzner’s invoice, it came from the collection of Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster from 1963. Father Ian Dickie, archivist of the Diocese of Westminster, suggested that the painting was part of a group of objects from “the patrimony of Archbishop’s House” sold to raise funds for charity and that it might have been given to Archbishop’s House at the time of its completion in 1903; letter of November 12, 2003, in curatorial file]; offered for sale, through John Myers as agent, Sotheby’s London, March 24, 1971, no. 59, as Netherlandish School, withdrawn [according to an e-mail from George Gordon, Sotheby’s; October 24, 2003, and letter of November 23, 2003]. Julius H. Weitzner, Inc., London, 1972; sold to the Art Institute, December 1972.