Confraternity Altarpiece: Madonna of the Rosary

Artist Bernardino Lanino (Italian, Vercelli or Mortara circa 1509–1582/1583 Vercelli, active in Piedmont and Lombardy)

Date1552

MediumOil on panel

Dimensions92 3/8 x 60 1/2 in. (234.6 x 153.7 cm)
Frame: 115 x 83 in. (292.1 x 210.8 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Object numberGL.60.17.45

On View

Not on view

Collections

ProvenanceEdward Solly (1776–1844), London; his sale, Christie’s, London, May 8, 1847, lot 25 [1], sold for £173.5.11 to Durrell [2]; Mrs. Lyne-Stephens [née Pauline Duvernay (1813–1894) [3]; 1845 married wealthy banker and MP, Lyne-Stephens], Lynford Hall, Norfolk and Paris; her estate sale, Christie’s, London, May 11, 1895, lot 317, sold for £399 to Shepherd [4]; Sir Frederick Cook (1844–1920), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, by 1903; through inheritance to Sir Herbert Cook (1868–1939) Doughty House, at least until 1932, presumably sold after 1939; sold 1948 to Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [5], for; Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York, 1948; gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to the NCMA, 1961.

[1] Shapley, vol. 2, p. 147 incorrectly identifies it as lot 31.

[2] Sale price from Waterhouse annotation of 1895 sale catalogue at GRI. English merchant, collector, dealer, Solly originally followed in his family’s Baltic timber business. He lived in Stockholm and then Berlin, where his interest in collecting and dealing began. He was the first English collector to assemble and important collection of Italian Renaissance paintings. See Frank Hermann, “Who was Solly?,” Connoisseur clxiv (1967), pp. 220–34; clxv (1967), pp. 12–18; 153-61; clxvi (1967), pp. 10–18; xlix (1968), pp. 12–17; Frank Hermann, “The English as Collectors, London, 1972; and Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art, London, 1976.

[3] According to the newspaper clippings regarding the sale, Pauline Duvernay was a famous “danseuse who delighted Londoners with the Cachuca or castanet dance before her marriage in the forties [1845] to Mr. Lyne-Stephens, a wealthy banker [and member of Parliament]. The Lyne-Stephens family was established generations ago in Cornwall.” In another article written in 1902 notes, “Part of the wealth of the Lyne-Stephens family comes to it from the pockets of the theatre-goers of the past generation,delighted by the dancing of Mlle. Duvernay, who first appeared in London at Drury Lane in 1833l…”

[4] Annotated copy of catalogue at GRI: original annotation cites price and Shepherd; Waterhouse added “for Cook Coll. Richmond.

[5] In addition to earlier references, see Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House Richmond, Surrey, in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart, London, 1932, p. 30, no. 116 (5) as B. Lanini. The Cook Collection was dismantled following the death of Sir Herbert Cook in 1939. Kress purchased 51 paintings from the collection through various dealers including Contini Bonacossi and Rosenberg and Stiebel.