Saint Apollonia Destroys a Pagan Idol
Giovanni d'Alemagna·c. 1442/1445
Historical Context
Giovanni d'Alemagna was a German-born painter who worked in Venice, often in collaboration with his brother-in-law Antonio Vivarini. This scene of Saint Apollonia destroying a pagan idol from the 1440s depicts the early Christian martyr whose teeth were extracted as torture. Giovanni's blend of late Gothic ornament with emerging Renaissance naturalism reflects the cosmopolitan artistic exchange in fifteenth-century Venice.
Technical Analysis
The tempera on poplar panel demonstrates the Murano school's blend of Gothic decorative richness with increasingly naturalistic figural painting. The ornate detail and bright palette reflect the transition from International Gothic to early Renaissance in Venice.
Provenance
(Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome), by July 1926;[1] purchased April 1927 by Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955], New York;[2] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] The expertise for this painting is dated 16 July 1926, issued by Georg Gronau (copy in NGA curatorial files) in all probability at the request of Count Contini Bonacossi, who began to sell painting to Samuel H. Kress around that time; see _Dizionario biografico degli italiani_, Rome, 1983: 28:524. [2] The bill of sale for eight paintings, including "A panel representing Scene from the Life of St. Catherine by Antonio Vivarini," is dated 6 April 1927 (copy in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1800).
