Attributed to Domenico Puligo (Italian, 1492-1527), Madonna and Child with an Angel, ca. 1520, oil on panel. Samuel H. Kress Collection, 2024 (2024.1)
The Museum is delighted to announce the acquisition of a ca. 1520 painting attributed to Domenico Puligo. Domenico di Bartolomeo degli Ubaldini, known as Domenico Puligo or Il Puligo, worked in Florence, Italy, in the 1510s and 1520s. His style was influenced by the work of his contemporaries, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1483-1561) and Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) who in turn were influenced by Raphael (1483-1520). In the work recently acquired by the museum, their influences can be seen in the expressive faces and monumental scale of the Madonna and Child.
This painting is the first tondo, or circular artwork, from Renaissance Italy to enter the collection. The tondo format was typically used for works intended for a domestic setting, and this painting may have been used for private devotion. The green curtain at the right of the painting refers to the actual curtains that historically would have been used to veil such artworks: this practice meant that such works were not common objects one saw every day, preserving their sacredness.
Domenico Puligo’s Madonna and Child with an Angel resonates with the many Renaissance depictions of this subject in the Museum’s holdings, making it a compelling addition to the collection. This painting also joins other works by Florentine artists at the Museum, including Giuliano Bugiardini (1475-1554) and Paolo Uccello (1397-1475).
Sally MacGowan and Barry Brobst from Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Allentown
This painting had an unexpected path to the Museum. Once held by collector and philanthropist Samuel H. Kress (1863-1955), the painting was donated in his memory to Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Allentown, where he had been a church member, by his brother Rush Kress in 1955. In the later years of his life, Samuel had sought to increase access to art by donating works from his substantial collection to ninety institutions across the country. He designated one of the largest gifts—including over fifty Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures—for the Allentown Art Museum, in honor of his birthplace of Cherryville, PA, a small community in Northampton County about a dozen miles north of Allentown.
Domenico Puligo’s painting remained at the Church until recently, when it needed to be moved during maintenance work. The Church reached out to Museum staff for assistance, and subsequently the Kress Foundation, the Museum, and the Church began a conversation about transferring the painting to the Museum to make it more accessible for the public to enjoy. All agreed that its transfer to the Museum was the ideal outcome, particularly since the Museum is just a block away from the Church and admission-free.
Madonna and Child with an Angel formally joined the collection of the Allentown Art Museum in March 2024. It recently returned from the Conservation Center, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where conservators for the Kress Collection removed discolored varnish and consolidated areas of flaking paint. The painting is currently on view in the exhibition New Conversations: Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Allentown Art Museum. Church leaders attended the reveal of the painting during the member preview of the exhibition on November 15, 2024. The painting will subsequently be displayed in the renovated Kress Gallery when the space reopens in the summer of 2025.
“We’re thrilled to have this beautiful painting join the significant group of Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures in the Museum’s Kress collection, an unexpected and welcome addition,” says Elaine Mehalakes vice president of curatorial affairs. “We are so grateful to Saint John’s Lutheran Church for their stewardship over nearly seven decades, and for entrusting its future care to the Allentown Art Museum. They have shown a generosity of spirit in keeping with Samuel H. Kress’s intent that great works of art be available to everyone.”