The Renaissance Portrait

The Renaissance Portrait

Author: Patricia Lee Rubin

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 1588394255

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Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Bode-Museum, Berlin, Aug. 25-Nov. 20, 2011, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Dec. 21, 2011-Mar. 18, 2012.


Medici Women

Medici Women

Author: Gabrielle Langdon

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0802038255

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The ducal court of Cosimo I de' Medici in sixteenth-century Florence was one of absolutist, rule-bound order. Portraiture especially served the dynastic pretensions of the absolutist ruler, Duke Cosimo and his consort, Eleonora di Toledo, and was part of a Herculean programme of propaganda to establish legitimacy and prestige for the new sixteenth-century Florentine court. In this engaging and original study, Gabrielle Langdon analyses selected portraits of women by Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, Alessandro Allori, and other masters. She defines their function as works of art, as dynastic declarations, and as encoded documents of court culture and propaganda, illuminating Cosimo's conscious fashioning of his court portraiture in imitation of the great courts of Europe. Langdon explores the use of portraiture as a vehicle to express Medici political policy, such as with Cosimo's Hapsburg and Papal alliances in his bid to be made Grand Duke with hegemony over rival Italian princes. Stories from archives, letters, diaries, chronicles, and secret ambassadorial briefs, open up a world of fascinating, personalities, personal triumphs, human frailty, rumour, intrigue, and appalling tragedies. Lavishly illustrated, Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love and Betrayal in the Court of Duke Cosimo I is an indispensable work for anyone with a passion for Italian renaissance history, art, and court culture.


Renaissance Faces

Renaissance Faces

Author: Lorne Campbell

Publisher: National Gallery London

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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"This survey traces the development of portrait painting in Northern and Southern Europe during the Renaissance, when the genre first flourished. Both regions developed their own distinct styles and techniques, but each was influenced by the other. Focusing on the relationship between artists of the north and south, renowned specialists analyse the notion of likeness - at that time based not only on accurate reference to posterity, but incorporating all aspects of human life, including propaganda, power, courtship, love, family, ambition and hierarchy. Essays and individual catalogue entries present new research on works by some of the greatest portraitists of the period, including Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Durer, Jan van Eyck, Hans Holbein and Titan, all magnificently illustrated."--Jacket.


Dilettanti

Dilettanti

Author: Bruce Redford

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2008-08-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0892369248

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Bruce Redford re-creates the vibrant culture of connoisseurship in Enlightenment England by investigating the multifaceted activities and achievements of the Society of Dilettani. Elegantly and wittily he dissects the British connoisseurs whose expeditions, collections, and publications laid the groundwork for the Neoclassical revival and for the scholarly study of Graeco-Roman antiquity. After the foundation of the society in 1732, the Dilettani commissioned portraits of the members. Including a striking group of mock-classical and mock-religious representations, these portraits were painted by George Knapton, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Sir Thomas Lawrence. During the second half of the century, the society’s expeditions to the Levant yielded a series of pioneering architectural folios, beginning with the first volume The Antiquities of Athens in 1762. These monumental volumes aspired to empirical exactitude in text and image alike. They prepared the way for Specimens of Antient Sculpture (1809), which combines the didactic (detailed investigations into technique, condition, restoration, and provenance) with the connoisseurial (plates that bring the illustration of ancient sculpture to new artistic heights). The Society of Dilettanti’s projects and publications exemplify the Enlightenment ideal of the gentleman amateur, which is linked in turn to a culture of wide-ranging curiosity.


A Companion to Cosimo I de’ Medici

A Companion to Cosimo I de’ Medici

Author: Alessio Assonitis

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-01

Total Pages: 659

ISBN-13: 9004465219

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Mining the rich documentary sources housed in Tuscan archives and taking advantage of the breadth and depth of scholarship produced in recent years, the seventeen essays in this Companion to Cosimo I de' Medici provide a fresh and systematic overview of the life and career of the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, with special emphasis on Cosimo I's education and intellectual interests, cultural policies, political vision, institutional reforms, diplomatic relations, religious beliefs, military entrepreneurship, and dynastic concerns. Contributors: Maurizio Arfaioli, Alessio Assonitis, Nicholas Scott Baker, Sheila Barker, Stefano Calonaci, Brendan Dooley, Daniele Edigati, Sheila ffolliott, Catherine Fletcher, Andrea Gáldy, Fernando Loffredo, Piergabriele Mancuso, Jessica Maratsos, Carmen Menchini, Oscar Schiavone, Marcello Simonetta, and Henk Th. van Veen.


Luxury Arts of the Renaissance

Luxury Arts of the Renaissance

Author: Marina Belozerskaya

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2005-10-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0892367857

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Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.


The Medici: Portraits and Politics 1512–1570

The Medici: Portraits and Politics 1512–1570

Author: Keith Christiansen

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published: 2021-04-19

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1588397300

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Between 1512 and 1570, Florence underwent dramatic political transformations. As citizens jockeyed for prominence, portraits became an essential means not only of recording a likeness but also of conveying a sitter’s character, social position, and cultural ambitions. This fascinating book explores the ways that painters (including Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Francesco Salviati), sculptors (such as Benvenuto Cellini), and artists in other media endowed their works with an erudite and self-consciously stylish character that made Florentine portraiture distinctive. The Medici family had ruled Florence without interruption between 1434 and 1494. Following their return to power in 1512, Cosimo I de’ Medici, who became the second Duke of Florence in 1537, demonstrated a particularly shrewd ability to wield culture as a political tool in order to transform Florence into a dynastic duchy and give Florentine art the central position it has held ever since. Featuring more than ninety remarkable paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and medals, this volume is written by a team of leading international authors and presents a sweeping, penetrating exploration of a crucial and vibrant period in Italian art.


Pontormo

Pontormo

Author: Elizabeth Cropper

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 0892363665

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Pontormo's Halberdier has long been controversial. How did scholars come to identify the sitter as Duke Cosimo de' Medici and why is this open to doubt? Who was Francesco Guardi? What was the siege of Florence, and could Pontormo have made this compelling portrait during that time of deprivation and political tumult? In a fascinating piece of historical detective work, Elizabeth Cropper investigates these questions and uncovers new evidence for interpretation. She also analyzes the portrait's relationship to other works by Pontormo, explores the importance for Pontormo of Donatello, Michelangelo, and Andrea del Sarto, and looks into Bronzino's connection with the portrait.


Holbein

Holbein

Author: Anne T. Woollett

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2021-10-19

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1606067478

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Stunning portraits by the renowned Renaissance artist illuminate fascinating figures from the European merchant class, intellectual elite, and court of King Henry VIII. Nobles, ladies, scholars, and merchants were the subjects of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543), an inventive German artist best known for his dazzling portraits. Holbein developed his signature style in Basel and London amid a rich culture of erudition, self-definition, and love of luxury and wit before becoming court painter to Henry VIII. Accompanying the first major Holbein exhibition in the United States, this catalogue explores his vibrant visual and intellectual approach to personal identity. In addition to reproducing many of the artist's painted and drawn portraits, this volume delves into his relationship with leading intellectuals, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More, as well as his contributions to publishing and book culture, meticulous inscriptions, and ingenious designs for jewels, hat badges, and other exquisite objects. This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from October 19, 2021, to January 9, 2022 and at the Morgan Library & Museum from February 11 to May 15, 2022.


The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Author: Boston, Mass. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 9780300063417

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"This book takes you through the collection gallery by gallery, illuminating the art and installations in each room"--From preface.