
Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain
Saint Helen Testing the True Cross
Tintoretto · c. 1545
Provenance
Ownership history
- Sir Thomas Andros de la Rue, Bart. (died 1911), London; his sale, Christie’s, London, June 16, 1911, no. 67, to Robert Langton Douglas, for £273, along with the related painting “The Discovery of the True Cross” now in the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York [see Art Prices Current 1911 and an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the painting seems to have remained with the “The Discovery of the True Cross” until 1932, when it entered the collection of the Art Institute]; sold by Langton Douglas to Mrs. Philip M. Lydig (née Rita de Acosta), New York, by 1913; sold in her sale, American Art Association, New York, April 4, 1913, no. 130 to W. W. Seaman for $2000 [“Rita Lydig Sale,” 1913, p. 6; for price and buyer, see annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]. Robert Langton Douglas, London, by 1924 [according to the mount of a photograph in the Witt Library, London]. F. Hess, Berlin, by 1925 [lent to Berlin 1925]; sold in his sale, Paul Cassirer and Théodore Fischer, Lucerne, September 1, 1931, no. 4, for Fr 9000 [according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Ryerson Library, Art Institute]. Böhler and Steinmeyer, New York, by 1932; given to the Art Institute, 1932.
Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.
Exhibitions
Exhibition history
- Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums-Verein, Germälde alter Meister aus Berliner Besitz, July–August 1925, no. 399b.
- Benent, Illinois, National Arts Foundation Museum, 1955, no cat.
Literature
Published references
- Art Prices Current, vol. 4 (London, 1911), p. 556.
- J. B. T., “The Lydig Collections,” American Art News, 11, 24 (1913), p. 6.
- “Rita Lydig Sale,” American Art News, 11, 26 (1913), p. 6.
- Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Illustrated Catalogue of the Rita Lydig Collection (New York, 1913), no. 130, ill.
- Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Mrs. Lydig’s Library,” Art in America 1, 2 (1913), p. 69.
- Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago, 1932), p. 173.
- Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 26 (1932), p. 60, ill.
- Hans Tietze, “Bozzetti di Jacopo Tintoretto,” Arte veneta 5 (1951), pp. 57–58, ill.
- W. R. Rearick, “Battista Franco and the Grimani Chapel,” Saggi e memorie di storia dell’arte 2 (1958–59), p. 119 n. 67.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 450.
- Hans Huth, “Italienische Kunstwerke im Art Institute von Chicago, USA,” in Miscellanea Bibliothecae Hertzianae (Munich, 1961), p. 518.
- Carlo Bernari and Pierluigi De Vecchi, L’opera completa del Tintoretto, Classici dell’arte 36 (Milan, 1970), p. 134.
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Museum holdings, not sale records. Auction results are only shown when a licensed price source is connected.
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