John La Farge (1835–1910)
The Virgin at the Foot of the Cross, 1862–63

Oil on panel
McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Gift of William M. & Alison S. Vareika ’74, P’09, ’15, LP’16 and Alexandria & Michael N. Altman P’22, ’24, ’26, 2016.830.1

This large panel depicting the Virgin was paired with the painting of St. John the Evangelist as part of a project for an unfinished triptych. In 1878 La Farge expressed his intentions in notes for an auction of the works: “These panels are treated as part of a great decorative ‘ensemble.’ … The figures of John and Mary represent them as listening to words [John 19:25–27]. They are also meant to typify Humanity and the Church.” Mary is modeled on La Farge’s wife, Margaret.

The Virgin and St. John were exhibited in 1863 at the National Academy of Design in New York, and featured in 1878 in the exhibition and sale of La Farge’s works in Boston. In 1901 William C. Whitney installed the panels with other paintings and tapestries on the grand staircase of his mansion on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan where they remained until 1931 when Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney donated them to the new Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1950, the museum sold the panels to Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, who hung them in his home in Trujillo, Spain. Cornelius Whitney’s decorator, Duarte Pinto Coelho, owned them from 1983 until 2010 when William Vareika discovered them in a Christie’s auction in England.