Details

Title

Purissima

Artist/Maker

Joseph Stella (American, born Italy, 1877–1946)

Date

1927

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

76 x 57 inches

Credit

Purchase with funds from Harriet and Elliott Goldstein and High Museum of Art Enhancement Fund

Accession #

2000.206

On View

Currently not on view

Joseph Stella’s depictions of the world around him offered an idiosyncratic vision of the early 1900s. He found fame with a striking series of paintings featuring the Brooklyn Bridge. Always reinventing himself, however, he turned to a series inspired by the art and environment of his native Naples. Purissima is one in a series of exquisite, large-scale paintings featuring Madonnas painted to resemble early Christian icons and set in stylized, paradisiacal Italian landscapes. This example includes a view of the Mount Vesuvius gently erupting the distance.

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