page_title: The Veiled Nun
section_title: History and attribution
hierarchical_section_title: The Veiled Nun / History and attribution
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraved illustration of Veiled Bust exhibited at the 1853–1854 New York World’s Fair attributed to Giuseppe Croff
context_page_description: The Veiled Nun is a marble bust depicting a female figure that was sculpted by an unidentified Italian workshop in c. 1863. Despite its name, the woman depicted is not a nun. The bust was popular with visitors to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from 1874 until the museum closed in 2014. The bust is now displayed in the National Gallery of Art.
context_section_description: The bust was purchased for $300 in 1863 by American banker and art collector William Corcoran during a visit to Rome. It was a part of his private collection until he gave it to his museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art. It was displayed in the Octagon Room of what is now the Renwick Gallery during the January 1874 opening exhibition of the Corcoran Gallery along with Hiram Powers' The Greek Slave.
  For the next six decades, The Veiled Nun was listed as a copy of a bust by an unknown artist. This attribution was changed to the Milanese sculptor Giuseppe Croff (1810-1869) in 1939, when a patron pointed out a similarity with an engraved illustration of a bust by Croff in a catalogue of the 1853 New York World’s Fair. The Croff attribution remained until 2012 when the curator staff looked at a copy of the catalogue and noted significant differences between the works (the actual bust attributed to Croft cannot be located). Further analysis by experts led to a new attribution of an unknown commercial workshop in Rome.
  The bust was one of the most popular artworks throughout its time at the museum. Following the Corcoran's dissolution in 2014, The Veiled Nun and 17,000 other works of art were accessioned by the National Gallery of Art.
caption: Engraved illustration of a Veiled Bust by Giuseppe Croff in a catalogue of the 1853 New York World's Fair
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