Nativity in an Initial H

Provenance

Ercole Canessa (died 1929), Paris,1923. Robert Lehman (died 1969), New York; Robin Lehman, London. Sold by James Kirkman, London, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, February 1972; given to the Art Institute, 1998.

Exhibition history

Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, "Exposition de la Collection Lehman de New York," 1957, cat. 172. Cincinnati Art Museum, "The Lehman Collection," 1959, p. 31, cat. 324. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Gifts of a Lifetime," 1998–99, checklist 1. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection," June 3–July 30, 2006, p. 24, cat. 1 (ill.).

Publications

Seymour de Ricci, with William Jerome Wilson, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada 2 (New York, 1937), p. 1710, D. 26–27. Pia Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, exh. cat. (New York, 2003), pp. 68–69, 178, fig. 10, cat. 7.

Quick Overview

Artist: Zanino di Pietro (Giovanni di Francia) / Italian, active 1389-1448
Date: 1430/40
Medium: Brush and gouache, heightened with gum arabic, gold leaf, and gold paint, over brush and black ink, on vellum
Dimensions: 27.7 × 22.9 cm (10 15/16 × 9 1/16 in.)
Type: Drawing
Classification: gouache
Style: medieval
Place: Veneto
Department: Prints and Drawings
Credit line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Accession no.: 1998.95

Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.