Art and Love in Renaissance Italy
November 18, 2008–February 16, 2009
This exhibition explores the various exceptional objects created to celebrate love and marriage in the Italian Renaissance. The approximately 150 objects, which date from about 1400 to the mid-sixteenth century, range from exquisite examples of maiolica and jewelry given as gifts to the couple, to marriage portraits and paintings that extol sensual love and fecundity, such as the Metropolitan's Venus and Cupid by the great Venetian artist Lorenzo Lotto. The exhibition also includes some of the rarest and most significant pieces of Renaissance glassware, cassone panels, birth trays, and drawings and prints of amorous subjects.
The exhibition is made possible by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Additional support is provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Charles Bloom Foundation.
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.
It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
