PLATE 1. Raphael and his workshop, Madonna of the Candelabra, ca. 1513, oil on panel, 25⅞ × 25¼ in. WAM 37.484. Berenson dissuaded his client Isabella Stewart Gardner from acquiring this painting on the ground that there was “nothing” of Raphael in the painting other than the idea of the composition. Walters likewise recognized that the two angels in the painting were painted by Raphael’s workshop and that the painting had been reduced in size but nevertheless acquired it in 1901. It was the first Raphael Madonna to be acquired for a collection in the United States, and it remained one of Walters’s favorite paintings. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 2. The Ideal City, ca. 1480–84, oil on panel, 31⅝ × 86⅝ in. WAM 37.677. This painting was acquired by Walters in 1902 as part of the Massarenti collection. Although the identity of its painter has remained uncertain—it has been attributed to more than twelve different artists—the painting long has been considered to be one of the icons of Italian Renaissance painting. The painting’s perfectly designed linear space, central fountain, columns, and Renaissance architecture might have reminded Walters of Mount Vernon Square in Baltimore, where he planned to construct his Renaissance-revival museum to house the artwork purchased from Massarenti. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 3. Maerten van Heemskerck, Panorama Fantasy with the Abduction of Helen, ca. 1532–36, oil on canvas, 58 × 151 in. WAM 37.656. When Walters visited the Massarenti Gallery in 1902, he could not have missed this large painting, which is more than twelve feet long. With the wonders of the ancient world in the background, the painting’s foreground depicts the Trojan prince Paris abducting Helen and carting away great works of art to ships waiting offshore for transit to Troy. Walters might have interpreted this painting as a history lesson linking his own plan to ship the massive Massarenti collection of art to America to the legendary tradition of treasure hunting of the past. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 4. Workshop of Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and Child, ca. 1327–1348, tempera and gold on panel, 27⅛ × 187⁄16 in. WAM 37.553. This painting was in Berenson’s personal collection. In 1911, after Berenson acquired another Madonna and Child by Daddi, he sold this “Daddi” to Walters. Subsequent scholars have determined that the painting probably was designed by Daddi but painted by artists in his workshop. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 5. Bronzino’s Portrait of a Baby Boy, oil and tempera on panel, 133⁄16 × 10¼ in. WAM 37.451. This painting was also in Berenson’s personal collection before he sold it to Walters in 1911. In Walters’s 1915 catalogue, it was entitled Infant Medici in Swaddling Clothes. The identity of the child in this painting, however, is uncertain, but he probably was a son of Cosimo I. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 6. Bicci de Lorenzo, The Annunciation, ca. 1430, tempera and gold leaf on panel, 64¾ × 57 in. WAM 37. 488. Walters acquired this altarpiece from Berenson in 1913. Berenson described it to Walters as “one of the most delightful works painted soon after 1400, & is the masterpiece of one of the most interesting figures of that time.” Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 7. Bartolomeo Di Giovanni, The Myth of Io, ca. 1490, tempera and oil on panel, 25⅝ × 671⁄22 in. WAM 37.421. When offering this painting to Walters in 1911, Berenson described it as “a large cassone front representing the telescoped myths of Io & Europa [from Ovid’s Metamorphoses]. It is in brisk, youthfully joyous narrative style, & is delightfully golden in colour, & truly poetical in landscape.” Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 8. Pintoricchio, Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, ca. 1475–80, oil on canvas, 59 × 41¾ in. WAM 37.1089. When Berenson sold this painting to Walters in 1916, he attributed it to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. It was the last painting that Walters purchased from Berenson. In 1976, the painting was reattributed to Pintoricchio. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 9. Saint George and the Dragon. WAM 37.466. Berenson attributed this painting to Pietro Carpaccio when he sold it to Walters in 1911 and stood behind this attribution when Walters, with his advice, revised his catalogue in 1915. However, in Venetian Paintings in America, published in 1916, Berenson criticized the painting, stating that “it is a mediocre performance, and has been restored not too well.” Many years after the deaths of Walters and Berenson, the staff at the Walters Art Museum discovered that the painting was a forgery. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 10. Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child, ca. 1446–47, tempera and gold on panel, 29¾ × 20⅝ in. WAM 37.429. This painting was acquired by Walters in 1902 as part of the Massarenti collection. Along with Raphael’s Madonna of the Candelabra and Carlo Crivelli’s Madonna, Walters identified this painting as one of his favorites. While visiting Walters’s gallery and examining his Italian paintings in 1914, Berenson noted that this painting was “one of the loveliest in existence.” Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 11. Carlo Crivelli, Madonna, ca. 1485–90, tempera and oil on panel, 389⁄16 × 325⁄16 in. WAM 37.593. Walters acquired this painting in 1902 as part of the Massarenti collection. It was one of Walters’s favorite paintings, and Berenson, in his Venetian Paintings in America, opined that “it is a delightful work of soft but rich color and lacquer-like effect.” Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 12. Giovanni Bellini and Workshop, Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and Mark and Three Venetian Procurators, 1510, oil on canvas mounted on wood, 36 × 58 in. WAM 37.466. Walters acquired this painting from a dealer other than Berenson in 1915. The question of what part Bellini played in creating this painting has been the subject of debate. Berenson’s own views about the authorship of the painting evolved. In 1916, he questioned whether Bellini painted it, writing “that it was by Bellini himself I find hard to believe.” By 1957, however, he concluded that the painting was in “great part” by Bellini. It has now been determined that the saints in the picture were added by Bellini’s assistants. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 13. Giulio Romano, Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, 1522–24, oil on panel, 49½ × 33⅝ in. WAM 37.548. When Walters acquired this painting from Massarenti in 1902, it was attributed to Giulio Romano. Thereafter, Berenson attributed it to Bedolo. Recently, the painting was reattributed to Giulio Romano. Photograph Walters Art Museum.
PLATE 14. Bartolo di Fredi, Massacre of the Innocents, 1388, tempera and gold leaf on panel, 35⅛ × 51⅛ in. WAM 37.1018. Walters acquired this painting in 1917 from the Demotte gallery in Paris. He informed Berenson that, “though painful in subject,” he was “greatly blessed” to own it. Berenson likewise thought very highly of the painting. In an unfinished catalogue about the Walters collection of Italian paintings, Berenson wrote that this was one of Bartolo’s “most important” paintings and, from the standpoint of color alone, “ranks with the best” that the Middle Ages left behind. Photograph Walters Art Museum.