The Nativity

1516

Guillaume de Marcillat French, between 1467 and 1470 - 1529

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Published References

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Catalogue Raisonné

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Credit Line for Reproduction

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About the Artwork

This panel of the Nativity was made for the main choir chapel window in the cathedral of Cortona in Italy. The inscription below the scene QVE GEVIT ADORAVIT can be translated as “She worships him whom she bore.” The French immigrant Marcillat was responsible for the last great revival of monumental stained glass painting in Italy; Giorgio Vasari included Marcillat’s biography in his famous lives of Italian artists. The museum’s panel and its companion, Adoration of the Magi (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), are remarkably well preserved since they were removed from the church in the nineteenth century.

Title The Nativity

Artwork Date 1516

Artist Guillaume de Marcillat

Life Dates between 1467 and 1470 - 1529

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. French

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. Unknown

Medium Stained glass and sanguine

Dimensions Overall: 106 1/2 × 70 3/8 × 7 5/8 inches (270.5 × 178.8 × 19.4 cm)

Classification Stained Glass

Department European Sculpture and Dec Arts

Credit Founders Society Purchase, General Membership Fund

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 37.138

Markings

Inscriptions Inscribed, bottom of panel: QVE GENVIT ADORAVIT (She worships him whom she bore)

Provenance

From 1516, Cathedral of Santa Maria dell'Assunzione (Cortona, Italy)

Until at least 1875, Corazzi family (Cortona, Italy)

Unidentified owner (Rome, Italy)

After 1880, Richard and Eleanor J. Mortimer (Tuxedo Park, New York, USA). 1937-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:

Provenance page

Exhibition History

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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

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Published References

Vasari, Giorgio, trans. Mrs. J. Foster. The Lives of the Artists, Vol. 3. New York, 1897, p. 68.

Mancini, G.. Guglielmo de Marcillat Francese Insuperato Pittore sul Vetro. Florence, 1909, pp. 9, 21, 102.

Valentiner, W. "Ein Glasfenster Guglielmo de Marcillat in amerikanischem Besitz." Der Cicerone 14 (1922): pp. 240-243.

Rathbone, P. "A Stained Glass Window of the Nativity by Gugliemo de Marcillat." Bulletin of the DIA 17, 3 (1937): pp. 14-15 (cover ill.).

Atherly, S. "Marcillat's Cortona Nativity." Bulletin of the DIA 58, 2 (1980): pp. 72-81 (ill.).

Luchs, A. "Stained Glass above Renaissance Altars: Figural Windows in Italian Church Architecture from Brunelleschi to Bramante." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 48, 1 (1985): pp. 209-210 (ill.).

“Stained Glass Before 1700 in American Collections: Midwestern and Western States (Corpus Vitrerarum Checklist III.” Studies in the History of Art 28 (1989): p. 163 (ill.).

Raguin, V. and Helen J. Zakin. Corpus Vitrearum United States of America Part VII: Stained Glass Before 1700 in the Collections of the Midwest States, Vol. I. London,2001, pp. 217-225.

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Catalogue Raisoneé

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Credit Line for Reproduction

Guillaume de Marcillat, The Nativity, 1516, stained glass and sanguine. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, General Membership Fund, 37.138.