There’s an Italian painting at the Denver Art Museum that is one of my favorites in the world! Part of the reason it holds such a sweet spot in my heart is that when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Denver and first discovering Italian art, I chose this painting from all the works at the museum on which to write my first art history term paper. I got a nice grade for my effort and I remember the time of year (December) and subject matter (Adoration of the Magi) so well.

Here it is, in all of its Italian glory!

Adoration of the Magi, c. 1445-50
Bonifacio Bembo, Italian, 1420-1478
Born: Cremona, Italy
Active Years: 1455-1478

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonifacio_Bembo

The Simon Guggenheim Memorial Collection

How this painting came to join the department of European and American Art before 1900 at the Denver Art Museum:

The department of European and American Art before 1900 oversees a collection that includes more than 3,000 artworks and is composed of painting, sculpture, and works on paper, with significant strengths in early Italian Renaissance, 19th century French painting, and British art from 1400 to 1900.

The Denver Art Museum began acquiring notable examples of European art as early as the 1930s, with donations from Samuel H. Kress, Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim, and the Havemeyers, to name a few. Their generosity helped initiate a collection that grew in time through gifts and purchases.

Throughout the 1950s, Mrs. Simon Guggenheim donated a significant collection of Old Master paintings, and in 1954, as one of 18 regional museums, the museum was chosen by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to receive a gift of 33 paintings and four sculptures. Dating from the mid-1300s to mid-1600s, it was the first large collection of Old Masters to be shown in Denver. Additional gifts came from Marion G. Hendrie and the Charles Bayley, Jr. Collections.

KNOWN PROVENANCE
Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, Cremona, Italy. (Galerie Trotti, Paris), 1909. Michele Lazzaroni, Paris, by 1911, until 1926; (Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi, Florence), 1926; purchased 1926 from Contini-Bonacossi by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim; gifted in trust 1957 by Mrs. Olga Guggenheim to the Denver Art Museum. Provenance research is on-going at the Denver Art Museum and we will post information as it becomes available.

EXHIBITION HISTORY
“Pinacoteca di Brera, Mostra dedicata ai Tarocchi Visconti Sforza”—Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, 09/23/1999 – 01/15/2000
“Arte Lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza (Lombard Art from Visconti to Sforza) “—Palazzo Reale, 03/12/2015 – 06/28/2015