Charity

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1743/44

Francesco de Mura (Italian, 1696-1782)

This painting presents an allegory of the virtue of charity through images of maternal love and sacrifice: a mother nurtures several young children and a pelican feeds her young by drawing blood from her own breast. This work was one of a set of allegories of five virtues intended as decorations set above doors in a palace belonging to the king of Savoy, a region in northwest Italy. Francesco de Mura spent most of his career in Naples but also worked for the king of Savoy in the 1740s, producing paintings in a style that combined grand, calm figures with active drapery. Although it is now rectangular, the canvas shows signs of an earlier curved shape appropriate to a Rococo room decoration.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Francesco de Mura
Title: Charity
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.: 1743–1744
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 139.5 × 134.6 cm (54 15/16 × 53 in.); Framed: 159.4 × 159.4 cm (62 3/4 × 62 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Preston O. Morton Memorial Fund for Older Paintings
Reference Number: 1971.429
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/36492/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report, 1970–71 (Chicago: Art Institute, 1971), 26–27 (ill.).
Country Life, June 3, 1971.
Nicola Spinosa, Civiltà del ‘700 a Napoli. 1734-1799, exh. cat. vol. 1 (Firenze: Centro D, 1979), 196-97 cat. 90.
The Golden age of Naples: Art and Civilization under the Bourbons 1734–1805, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1981), 129–130, no. 34.
A Taste for Angels: Neapolitan Painting in North America 1650–1750, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1987), 262, fig. 114.
Sandra Pinto, Arte di Corte a Torino da Carlo Emanuele II a Carlo Felice (Turin, 1987), 21.
Mercedes Precerutti Garberi, Arte antica e moderna nelle collezioni della Banca Commerciale Italiana. Dal quattrocento al settecento (Milan, 1998), 262–63.
Gauvin Alexander Bailey, et al., Hope and Healing. Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague 1500–1800, exh. cat. (Wocester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 2005), 27, 194-195, cat. 9.
Arthur R. Blumenthal, In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura, exh. cat. (Winter Park: The Cornell Fine Arts Museum; London: D Giles Limited, 2016), 24, 42n28, 78, 134-35 cat. 19, 142, 152.

London, Heim Gallery, May 13–August 28, 1971, no. 14.
Detroit, Institute of Arts, The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization under the Bourbons 1734–1805, Aug. 11–Nov. 1, 1981, no. 34; Art Institute of Chicago, Jan. 16–Mar. 8, 1982.
Worcester, Massachusetts, Art Museum, Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague 1500–1800, Apr. 3–Sep. 25, 2005, cat. 9 (ill.).
Winter Park, Florida, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura, Sep. 17–Dec. 18, 2016, cat. 19; Madison, Chazen Museum of Art, Jan. 20–Apr. 2, 2017; Arlington, NY, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Apr. 21–July 2, 2017 [Winter Park and Madison only].

Probably commissioned by Charles Emmanuel III, Turin [see Pinto 1987]. Peretti, Rome, by 1971 [according to Heim Commission Book at the Getty Research Institute]; Heim Gallery, London, 1971; sold to the Art Institute, 1971.

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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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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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