About This Artwork

Gian Francesco de'Maineri
Italian, active 1489-1506

Sacrificial Scene, 1489/1490

Pen and black ink with brush and gray-and-brown wash, heightened with lead white, partially oxidized, on cream laid paper, edge mounted to cream wove card
418 x 300 mm (max.)
Restricted gift of the Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation, 1989.686

McCullagh & Giles 176

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

London, Royal Academy of Arts, "Exhibition of Italian Art, 1200-1900," 1930, cat. 601, as Ercole di Giulio Cesare Grandi.

Ferrara, Reale Accademia d’Italia, Palazzo dei Diamanti, "Catalogo della Esposizione della Pittura Ferrarese del Rinascimento," 1933, cat. 239, as Ercole de’ Roberti.

London, P.&D. Colnaghi, "Loan Exhibition of Drawings by Old Masters from the Collection of Geoffrey Gathorne-Hardy," 1971, cat. 8.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "New Acquisitions: Old Master Drawings of the 15th-18th Centuries," 1989-1990.

New York, The Frick Collection, "From Pontormo to Seurat: Drawings Recently Acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago," April 23-July 7, 1991, n.p., cat. 1; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, September 10, 1991-January 5, 1992.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Drawings Rediscovered: Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago," April 10-July 22, 1997.

Publication History

Alfred E. Gathorne-Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of the Drawings in the Possession of the Hon. A. E. Gathorne-Hardy (London, 1902), no. 39.

Josef Schoenbrunner and Josef Meder, Handzeichnungen alter meister aus der Albertina und anderen Sammlungen 9 (Vienna, 1896-1908), no. 1046 (ill.).

Edmund G. Gardener, The Painters of Ferrara (London, 1911), p. 224.

Georg Gronau, "Ercole (di Giulio Cesare) Grandi," Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart 14 (Leipzig, 1921), p. 507.

Aldofo Venturi, "Scelta di rari disegni nei musei d’Europa," L’Arte, 29 (1926), p. 7 (ill.).

Arthur E. Popham, Italian Drawings Exhibited at the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London (London, 1931), p. 42, no. 150 (ill.).

Lord Balniel and Kenneth Clark, A Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of Italian Art Held in the Galleries of the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London, January-March 1930 (London, 1931), p. 239, no. 752.

Roberto Longhi, Officina ferrarese (Florence, 1934), p. 170, n. 89.

Frits Saxl, "Pagan Sacrifice in the Italian Renaissance," Journal of the Warburg Institute 2 (1938-1939), p. 352 (ill.).

Sergio Ortolani, Cosmè Tura, Francesco del Cossa, Ercole de’ Roberti (Milan, 1941), p. 191 (ill.).

Mario Salmi, Ercole de’ Roberti (Milan, 1960), p. 45 (ill.).

Eberhard Ruhmer, "Ergänzendes zur Zeichnenkunst des Ercole de’ Roberti," Pantheon 20 (1962), p. 246, no. 4.

Eberhard Ruhmer, "Ercole de’ Roberti," Enciclopedia Universale dell’Arte, vol. 11 (Venice and Rome, 1963), col. 621.

Eberhard Ruhmer, "Ercole de’ Roberti," Encyclopedia of World Art, vol. 12 (London, 1966), col. 229.

Silla Zamboni, Pittori di Ercole I d’Este: Giovan Francesco Maineri, Lazzaro Grimaldi, Domenico Panetti, Michele Coltellini (Milan, 1975), pp. 12-13, and 56, no. 33 (ill.).

Victor Ieronim Stoichita, "Deux oeuvres ferraraises au Musée d’Art de la République Socialiste de Roumanie," Revue Roumanie d’Histoire de l’Art 15 (1978), p. 41 (ill.).

Victor Ieronim Stoichita, "Deux oeuvres ferraraises au Musée d’Art de la République Socialiste de Roumanie," Part 2, "Zonae Francesco da Parma pictore egregio," Revue Roumanie d’Histoire de l’Art 16 (1979), p. 70.

Maria Grazia Vaccari, Maestri Emiliani del Quattro e Cinquecento (Florence, 1980), no. 1 (ill.).

David Alan Brown, "Maineri and Marmitta as Devotional Artists," Prospettiva, 53-56 (1988-1989), pp. 302 and 306, n. 21.

Kristen Lippincott, "A Masterpiece of Renaissance Drawing: A Sacrificial Scene by Gian Francesco de’ Maineri," The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 17 (1991), pp. 6-21 (ill.).

Joseph Manca, The Art of Ercole de’ Roberti (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 181-82, no. R27 (ill.).

James N. Wood and Sally Ruth May, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (Chicago, 1993), p. 202 (ill.).

Laura Giles, in Burton L. Dunbar and Edward J. Olszewski, Drawings in Midwestern Collections I (Columbia, Mo., and London, 1996), pp. 68-71, no. 13 (ill.).

Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura M. Giles, Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1997), no. 176.

Suzanne Folds McCullagh, "Never Dormant: Drawings in Chicago," Master Drawings (2000).

Treasures from The Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood, with commentaries by Debra N. Mancoff (Chicago, 2000), p. 90 (ill.).

Suzanne Folds McCullagh, “‘A Lasting Monument’: The Regenstein Collection at The Art Institute of Chicago,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 26, 1 (2000), p. 12.

Laura M. Giles, “Sacrificial Scene, 1489/90,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 26, 1 (2000), pp. 14-15, no. 1.

Ownership History

Mr. Bromley-Davenport [inscription]. John Malcolm (died 1893), Poltalloch and London; his son-in-law, Honorable Alfred E. Gathorne-Hardy (died 1918), Newbury, Berkshire; his son, Geoffrey Gathorne-Hardy, Newbury, Berkshire; his cousin, Honorable Robert Gathorne-Hardy, Newbury, Berkshire; sold, Sotheby’s, London, November 24, 1976, Gathorne-Hardy sale, lot 6. British Rail Pension Fund; sold by Lexbourne Ltd., London, to the Art Institute, 1989.