The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 23, 2024

Adoration of the Magi

Adoration of the Magi

1642
(Italian, 1575–1642)
Framed: 378 x 280.5 x 10.5 cm (148 13/16 x 110 7/16 x 4 1/8 in.); Unframed: 367.3 x 268.6 cm (144 5/8 x 105 3/4 in.)

Description

This large altarpiece was in the artist's studio when he died, and parts of the composition appear incomplete. Some figures lack color, and Reni never finished the wooden structure. The silvery ground layer appears everywhere, as do his changes to the composition, such as the dog's head above the angel's right knee and the adjustment to Christ's right leg, covered in blue. However, Reni's death does not fully explain the unfinished quality. Toward the end of his career, he increasingly painted in a loose and sketchy manner—popular with collectors at the time—an approach implying that concrete forms could never depict the ideal, spiritual world Reni aimed to present.
  • 1969-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
    by 1968-1969
    (P.&D. Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., London), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1
    Probably 1880-by 1968
    Corsini Collection, Florence, to Colnaghi 1
    Probably 1812-1880
    Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra collection, Rome, by descent to the Corsini collection
    1645-1812
    Cardinal Francesco Barberini [1597 –1679] by inheritance within the Barberini family, Barberini Palace, Rome, by descent to the Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra collection 1
  • Lee, Sherman E. "Guido Reni, The Adoration of the Magi." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LVIII no. 10 (December, 1971):278-289. Reproduced: cover; p. 278, fig. 1
    Emiliani, Andrea. "Un Viaggio Sconosciuto di Francesco Gessi." Arte Antica e Moderna I (1958): 53-57.
    Attributed to Francesco Gessi. Mentioned: P. 57; reproduced: pl. 26b
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Reproduced: p. 394; Mentioned: p. 395-396
    Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1969." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LVII no. 1 (January, 1970):2-51. Reproduced: p. 2, fig. 149; Mentioned: p. 49, no. 149
    Butler, Joseph T. "The American Way with Art." The Connoisseur 175, no. 700 (June 1970): 158-163. Mentioned: P. 161
    Garboli, Cesare, Guido Reni, and Edi Baccheschi. L'opera completa di Guido Reni. Milano, Italy: Rizzoli, 1971. Reproduced: no. 202; Mentioned: p. 114-115
    Sherman Lee, “Guido Reni: The Adoration of the Magi,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 10 (Dec. 1971): 278-289.
    Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg. Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1975. Mentioned: p. 32, Doc. 270, p. 511, p. 535
    Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, and Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art. New York: New York University Press, 1975.
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 137 archive.org
    Pepper, D. Stephen. "A New Late Work by Guido Reni for Edinburgh and His Late Manner Re-Evaluated." The Burlington Magazine 121, no. 916 (1979): 418-25. Mentioned: P.424, n. 30 www.jstor.org
    Reni, Guido, and D. Stephen Pepper. Guido Reni: A Complete Catalogue of His Works with an Introductory Text. Oxford: Phaidon, 1984.
    Myers, Bernard S. Encyclopedia of World Art. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1987. Reproduced: vol. XVI, pl. XL,
    Salvy, Gérard-Julien. Guido Reni. Paris, France: Gallimard, 2001. Reproduced: p. 158, fig. 208
    Olszewski, Edward J. The Inventory of Paintings of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740). New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2004. Reproduced: p. 327, fig. 43
    Olszewski, Edward J. Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740) and the Vatican Tomb of Pope Alexander VIII. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2004.
    Malvasia, Carlo Cesare, Elizabeth Cropper and.Lorenzo Pericolo. Felsina Pittrice/ Lives of the Bolognese Painters: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Washington [D.C.]: Published for the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts; London: Harvey Miller, 2012. Reproduced: p. 428, fig. 294
    Christiansen, Keith. "Le Creation tardive d'une collection de peintures baroques au Metropolitan Museum of Art." In Aux origines d'un goût: la peinture baroque aux États-Unis = Creating the taste for baroque painting in America. Anna Ottani Cavina, and Keith Christiansen, 61-73. [Paris?] : Paris Tableau, 2015. Mentioned: p. 64, 70
    Grassi, Marco. "The American View of the Forgotten Century of Italian Painting: Reminiscences of a Conservator and Art Dealer." In Buying Baroque: Italian Seventeenth-Century Paintings Come to America. Edited by Edgar Peters Bowron, 40-53. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Frick Collection, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. Mentioned: p. 49
    "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums." The Art Quarterly XXXIII, no. 3 (Autumn 1970): 318-338. Reproduced: P. 328; mentioned: P. 323
  • Year in Review: 1969. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 27-February 22, 1970).
  • {{cite web|title=Adoration of the Magi|url=false|author=Guido Reni|year=1642|access-date=23 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1969.132