Provenance
Cardinal Joseph Fesch [1763-1839], Rome, after 1815;[1] (his sale, Palazzo Ricci, Rome, 17 March 1845 and days following, no. 1009, as by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione); purchased by (Alessandro Aducci).[2] Reginald Cholmondely, Condover Hall, by 1876;[3] (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 6 March 1897, no. 66, as by Velázquez); bought by Martin Colnaghi for Sir John Charles Robinson [1824-1913], London,[4] buying for Sir Francis Cook, 1st Bt. [1817-1901], Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey; by inheritance to his son, Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd Bt. [1844-1920], Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Herbert Frederick Cook, 3d Bt. [1868-1939], Doughty House;[5] by inheritance to his son, Sir Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th Bt. [1907-1978], Doughty House, and Cothay Manor, Somerset; sold February 1948 to (Gualtiero Volterra, London) for (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence);[6] purchased March 1949 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[7] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Cardinal Fesch was exiled from Paris in 1815. In the 1845 sale catalogue, paintings brought to Rome at that time are marked with an asterisk. The present painting is not so marked, indicating that it was among those acquired by the cardinal after 1815. It appears in the posthumous catalogue, _Catalogue des tableaux composant la galerie de feu s.e. le Cardinal Fesch_, Rome, 1841: 111, no. 2733 (as by Castiglione).
[2] Information from the annotated copy of the sale catalogue held by the Getty Provenance Index. Martha Hepworth has identified Aducci as a dealer (letter of 15 March 1993, NGA curatorial files).
[3] Exhibited at Wrexham in 1876 as from his collection.
[4] The annotated sale catalogue held by the Getty Provenance Index lists the purchaser as "M. Colnaghi for (Sir C. Robinson)." As Martha Hepworth pointed out, Robinson was Cook's principal adviser and bought most of Cook's paintings for him (letter cited in note 2).
[5] _Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey_, London, 1903: 26, no. 29 (ascribed to Velázquez); Maurice W. Brockwell, _A Catalogue of the Paintings in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bt._, London, 1915: 3:143, no. 504 (as Spanish seventeenth-century); _Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart._, London, 1932: 75, no. 504 (as by Castiglione).
[6] See copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files, from the Cook Collection Archive in care of John Somerville, England. Volterra was Contini Bonacossi's agent in London.
[7] The Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi on 4 March 1949 for a group of twenty-one paintings, including the Vassallo, identified at the time as _Still Life_ attributed to Velazquez; the offer was accepted on 10 March 1949 (see copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2220).
Accession Number
1961.9.91
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 229.2 x 163.2 cm (90 1/4 x 64 1/4 in.) | framed: 257.8 x 192.4 x 10.1 cm (101 1/2 x 75 3/4 x 4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection