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Upper Part of a Tabernacle for the Holy Sacrament
Provenance
Part of the Altar of the Holy Sacrament commissioned by Cardinal Guillaume d’Estouteville for the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome [Middeldorf 1944]; dismantled by 1573 [see Caglioti 1998]. Possibly Émile Molinier, Paris (died 1906) [according to Middeldorf 1944 and 1980, though the basis for this statement is unclear]. Alessandro Imbert, Rome, by 1920 [according to note added to the incoming receipt of Jan. 28, 1938 in registrar's office]; sold to Potter Palmer, II and Pauline Kohlsaat Palmer, Chicago, 1920 [see receipt cited above]; given by them to the Art Institute, 1938.
Publications
Art Institute of Chicago, Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago: Report of the Year 1938, 33, 4 (1939), pl. 9. Meyric R. Rogers, “The Robert Allerton Wing,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, 34 (1940), pp. 5-6. Ulrich Middeldorf, “The Tabernacle of S. Maria Maggiore,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 38, 1 (1944), pp. 6–10; reprinted Ulrich Middeldorf, Raccolta di Scritti, that is Collected Writings II: 1939–1973, Specimen 4 (Florence, 1980), pp. 55–59. Valentino Martinelli, "Donatello e Michelozzo a Roma (II)," Commentari, 9 (1958), p. 21 n. 34. Hans Caspary, “Ancora sui tabernacoli eucaristici del Quattrocento,”Antichità viva, 3, 5 (1964), pp. 29-30, 35. Hans Caspary, Das Sakramentstabernakel in Italien bis zum Konzil von Trient. Gestalt, Ikonographie und Symbolik, kultische Funktion (Munich, 1964), pp. 32-33, 35, 38-39, 41, 136 n. 79, 198 ( ill.). Allen Wardwell and Mildred Davison, “Three Centuries of the Decorative Arts in Italy,” Apollo 84 (1966), pp. 179-180, fig. 2. Hanno-Walter Kruft and Magne Malmanger, “Der Triumphbogen Alfonsos in Neapel. Das Monument und seine politische Bedeutung,” Institutum Romanum Norvegiae Acta 6 (1975), pp. 270-271, fig. 116. Francesco Negri Arnoldi, "Isaia da Pisa e Pellegrino da Viterbo" in Il Quattrocento a Viterbo, exh. cat. (Viterbo, Museo Civico, 1983), pp. 338, 340 n. 34. Meredith Jane Gill, “A French Maecenas in the Roman Quattrocento: The Patronage of Guillaume d’Estouteville (1439-1483),” PhD. dissertation, Princeton University, 1992, pp. 87, 127-28 n. 11, figs. 3-5. Sible de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor. Liturgia e architettura nella Roma tardoantica e medieval: Basilica Salvatoris, Sanctae Mariae, Sancti Petri (Vatican City, 1994), p. 372. Carlo La Bella, “Scultori nella Roma di Pio II (1458-1464). Considerazioni su Isaia da Pisa, Mino da Fiesole e Paolo Romano,” Studi Romani 43 (1995), pp. 29-30. "Isaia da Pisa" in The Dictionary of Art, vol. 16 (London, 1996), p. 67. Francesco Cagliotti, “Su Isaia da Pisa: Due ‘Angeli reggicandelabro’ in Santa Sabina all'Aventino e l’altare eucaristico del Cardinal d’Estouteville per Santa Maria Maggiore,” Prospettiva, nos. 89-90 (1998), pp. 129, 130, 132-4, 137, 139, 146, 148-52, figs. 15, 21 a-c. Francesco Caglioti, “Un medaglione neroniano d’Isaia da Pisa a Philadelphia e due altre aggiunte al catalogo dello scultore” in Arte collezionismo conservazione: Scritti in onore di Marco Chiarini, ed. Miles L. Chappell, Mario Di Giampaolo, Serena Padovani (Florence, 2004), p. 162, fig. 4. Francesco Caglioti, “Altari eucaristici scolpiti del primo Rinascimento: qualche caso maggiore” in Lo Spazio e il culto. Relazioni tra edificio ecclesiale e uso liturgico dal XV al XVI secolo, ed. Jörg Stabenow (Venice 2006), p. 82. Carlo La Bella, “Isaia da Pisa, Mino da Fiesole e gli scultori toscani” in Il ‘400 a Roma. La rinascita delle arti da Donatello a Perugino, ed. Maria Grazia Bernardini and Marco Bussagli, vol. 1, exh. cat. Museo del Corso, Rome (Milan, 2008), p. 197. .
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Isaia da Pisa (Italian, active 1428–64)
- Date
- 1461/63
- Medium
- Marble
- Dimensions
- 88.3 × 116.8 cm (34 3/4 × 46 in.)
- Type
- Sculpture
- Classification
- relief
- Style
- 15th century
- Place
- Italy
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer
- Accession no.
- 1938.167
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00001839
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