NEW HAVEN, CONN.- The Yale University Art Gallery announced the release of the first volume of the collection catalogue Italian Paintings at the Yale University Art Gallery, covering the period from approximately 1230 through 1420. To be released at later dates, volume 2 will present works produced between about 1420 and 1490, volume 3 will examine objects dating from about 1490 through 1600, and volume 4 will feature works from 1600 to 1880. The result of years of close examination and research, these publications represent the first thorough and comprehensive study of Yale’s exceptional collection of this material.

The Gallery’s Italian paintings constitute one of the largest and richest such collections outside of Europe. At its core is the renowned Jarves Collection, assembled in Florence between 1852 and 1859 by the self-taught art lover and critic James Jackson Jarves (1818–1888). In the 1930s and 1940s, the Italian paintings collection at Yale was considerably augmented by gifts from, and ultimately the bequest of, Maitland Fuller Griggs (1872–1943, B.A. 1896), also a major donor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Additional gifts received in 1959 from Hannah D. and Louis M. Rabinowitz and, over the last decade, from Richard L. Feigen (B.A. 1952) and other friends of the Gallery—along with strategic purchases—have greatly expanded the chronological and geographic sweep of the collection from its core strengths in Tuscan paintings of the 13th, 14th, and 15th century, so that it now encompasses a broad panorama of nearly the entire Italian peninsula.

Among its notable contributions to existing scholarship, the catalogue provides a complete review of published references for each object; a detailed report on its condition, accompanied by current and, in many cases, historical photography; updated or corrected provenance information; and an in-depth discussion of meaning, context, chronology, attribution, and related works of art. The first volume, which begins with an essay by coauthor Laurence Kanter that surveys the development of the collection and introduces its troubled conservation history, offers important new insights into numerous works with historically controversial attributions. Included in volume 1 are the outstanding 13th-century panel paintings in Yale’s collection—among the largest and most significant group of such works outside of Italy—as well as a broadly comprehensive selection of works by 14th-century artists from Florence and Siena. In many cases, the collection contains three or even four paintings by the same artist, presenting a nearly complete view of the full arc of an artist’s career. Examinations of paintings by artists from other Tuscan and North Italian schools complete the publication.

Italian Paintings at the Yale University Art Gallery: Volume 1 originally launched online in 2023 as the museum’s first born-digital publication, offered free to access and download. To publish this important scholarship in a timely manner and take full advantage of the digital format, object entries are being released in batches as they are finalized; the digital version of volume 1 is complete, and more than 70 entries from the second and third volumes are also now available. The site has been built using Quire, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s open-access software. The digital catalogue is part of the Gallery’s larger efforts to increase access to its collections and scholarship and reach more readers than ever before—work that has also involved digitizing the museum’s out-of-print publications and making them available as free PDFs as part of the museum’s Online Access project. Once complete, Italian Paintings at the Yale University Art Gallery will reveal the full depth and breadth of the museum’s exceptional holdings.

Laurence Kanter is Chief Curator and the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of European Art at the Yale University Art Gallery; he was formerly Curator-in-Charge of the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He is the author of the catalogue of Italian paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1994) and coauthor of Luca Signorelli (2001) as well as several exhibition catalogues, including Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio, Early Paintings and New Attributions (2018), Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420–1500 (1988), Italian Renaissance Frames (1990), Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300–1450 (1994), Botticelli’s Witness (1997), The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi (1999), Fra Angelico (2005), Italian Paintings from the Richard L. Feigen Collection (2010), and Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio, Early Paintings and New Attributions (2018).

An acknowledged authority on Italian manuscript illumination and panel painting of the thirteenth through fifteenth century, Pia Palladino was formerly Associate Curator of the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She is the author of Art and Devotion in Siena after 1350: Niccolò di Buonaccorso and Luca di Tommè (1997) and Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (2003); coauthor of Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300–1450 (1994), The Robert Lehman Collection, Vol. 4: Illuminations (1997), The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi (1999), and Fra Angelico (2005); and a contributing author to catalogues of the Cini Foundation in Venice, the Timken Museum in San Diego, and the Alana Collection.



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