The Wedding at Cana

c. 1686

Giuseppe Maria Crespi (Italian, 1665–1747)

Giuseppe Maria Crespi filled this depiction of the wedding feast where Jesus performed his first miracle with luxurious accessories and smaller interactions between characters within the larger narrative. On the left, Jesus converses with his mother; on the right, the wedding’s astonished host and his servant taste the water Jesus has miraculously turned into wine. The painting brings together the Venetian tradition of color and grandeur with the close observation of figures characteristic of the artist’s native Bologna.

Status: On View, Gallery 215
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Giuseppe Maria Crespi
Title: The Wedding at Cana
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1681–1691
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 188 × 248.4 cm (74 × 97 3/4 in.); Framed: 215.9 × 273.7 cm (85 × 107 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Wirt D. Walker Fund
Reference Number: 1956.129
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/2166/manifest.json

Giampietro Zanotti, Storia dell’Accademia Clementina di Bologna aggregata all’Instituto delle scienze e dell’Arti, Bologna, 1739, vol. 2, pp. 36–37.
Luigi Crespi, Vite de’pittori bolognesi non descritte nella Felsina Pittrice all maesta di Carlo Emanuele III. Re di Sardegna &c. &c., Rome, 1769, pp. 205–206.
Luigi Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia dal risorgimento delle Belle Arti fin presso al fine del XVIII Secolo, 3rd ed., Bassano, 1795–1796, vol. 5, p. 194; reprinted, Florence,edited by Martino Capucci, p. 125.
Stefano Ticozzi, Dizionario degli architetti, scultori, pittori, intagliatori in rame ed in pietra, coniatori di medaglie, musaicisti, niellatori, intarsiatori d’ogni età e d’ogni nazione…, Milan, 1830, vol. 1, p. 378.
Carlo Volpe, Antefatti bolognesi ed inizi di Giuseppe Maria Crespi,” Paragone, 91 (1957), pp. 33–35, 37, fig. 23.
“Report 1956–1957,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly, 51 (1957), p. 52.
W[altraut] M. van der Rohe, “The Marriage at Cana by Giuseppe Maria Crespi,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 52 (1958), pp. 6–9 (ill.).
R. F. C., “Cronache-Chicago,” Emporium 128 (1958), pp. 87–89 (ill.).
Hans Huth, “Italienische Kunstwerke im Art Institute von Chicago, USA,” Römische Forchungen der Biliotheca Hertziana, 16 (1961), p. 518, fig. 381.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961) pp. 39 (ill.), 110.
Mira Pajes Merriman, “The Paintings of Giuseppe Maria Crespi,” Ph. D. diss., Columbia University, 1968 (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms), pp. 22–24, 26, 179–81, no. 42, fig. 1.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), p. 59.
Michael Liebmann, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, mit einem Text von Luigi Crespi, Dresden, 1976, p. 15, pl. 1.
Renato Roli, Pittura Bolognese 1650–1800 dal Cignani ai Gandolfi, Bologna, 1977, pp. 106, 250, fig. 156.
Mira Pajes Merriman, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Milan, 1980, pp. 69–72, 201, 203, 250–51, no. 51, 254–255, 271, 293, 328, figs. 30, 51, pls. VIII–IX.
Hanna Kiel, review of Bologna, “X. Biennale d’arte antica, l’arte del settecento emiliano,” in Pantheon 38 (1980), p. 32.
The Art Institute of Chicago, 100 Masterpieces, Chicago, 1983, p. 64, pl. 27.
Marcello Oretti e il patrimonio artistico privato Bolognese, Emilia Calbi and Daniela Scagliette Kelescian eds., Bologna, [1984], p. 87, B. 104, [b] 48/4.
Dwight C. Miller, review of Mira Pajes Merriman, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, in Art Bulletin 67 (1985), p. 340.
Mira Pajes Merriman, The Age of Correggio and the Carracci, Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1986, pp. 418–20, under no. 142.
Mira P[ajes] Merriam, in The Settecento: Italian Rococo and Early Neo-Classical Paintings 1700–1800, exh. cat., Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., London, 1987, pp. 109–10, under no. 22 (ill.).
Renato Roli, in La pittura in Italia: Il Seicento, Milan, 1988, vol. 1, p. 265.
Mira Pajes Merriman, “Giuseppe Maria Crespi” in Giuseppe Maria Crespi, 1665–1747, exh. cat., Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, 1990, pp. LXIV, LXXIII.
Eugenio Riccòmini, “Gli inizi del Crespi: ‘Una maniera affato nuova, tratta però da lunghi studi’” in Giuseppe Maria Crespi, 1665–1747, exh. cat., Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, 1990, pp. LXXXIX–XCI.
Catherine R. Puglisi, “Giuseppe Maria Crespi,” in Dictionary of Art, vol. 8, London, 1996, p. 140.
Andres Priever, Vorbild und Mythos : die Wirkungsgeschichte der “Hochzeit zu Kana” Paolo Veroneses, Sigmarigen, 1997, pp. 73–74, fig. 25.

Bologna, Palazzi del Podestà e di Re Enzo, X biennale d’arte antica. L’Arte del settecento emiliano. La pittura, l’Accademia Clementina, 1979, no. 9 (ill.).
Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy, 1986, no. 1 (ill.)

Commissioned by Giovanni Ricci, Bologna, c. 1686 [Zanotti 1739, p. 36]; by descent to his nephew, Antonio Marchesini, Bologna, by 1739 [Zanotti 1739, p. 36]; by descent to Filippo Marchesini, Strada Maggiore, Bologna, by c. 1765 [included in Marcello Oretti, “Descrizione delle Pitture che ornano Le Case de Cittadini della Città di Bologna,” [1765], Bologna, Biblioteca Comunale, MS.B.109, (pt. 1), pp. 6–7, see Calbi and Scaglietti Kelescian 1984 pp. 86–87]; bought by Dr. Giacomelli, Bologna, c. 1766 (Crespi, 1769, pp. 205–06). Palazzo Sampieri, Bologna, by 1789 until 1830 [mentioned by Lanzi 1789 and Ticozzi 1850]. Maurice Marignane, Paris [according to record in Registrar’s office]. C. Marshall Spink, London by 1956; sold to the Art Institute, 1956.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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