The Age of Discovery
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE AGE OF DISCOVERY A Loan Exhibition from Arts of 16th The Metropolitan Museum of Art Funded in major part by a grant from Century Europe the New York State Council on the Arts ' INTRODUCTION The Age of Discovery: Arts of 16th Century Europe Our thanks are also extended to those is the third loan exhibition from The members of the curatorial staff who Metropolitan Museum of Art to libraries on provided catalogue text: James David Long Island. Once again, we are very Draper, Jesse McNab, Jean Mailey, Clare grateful to the New York State Council on Le Corbeiller, Laurence Libin, Edith Standen, the Arts for providing major funding for and Clare Vincent. Barbara Boehm, the exhibition. Department of Medieval Art, and B. Lynne Punzelt, Department of Public Education, The objects for this exhibition were selected assisted with research. John Williamson from the Museum's collections of decorative shared his knowledge of herbs and their arts, armor, musical instruments, and uses. liturgical arts to indicate the range of themes, ornaments, materials, and techniques which We are grateful to Nobuko Kajitani and existed in 16th-century Europe. While it was Nancy Haller, of the Textile Conservation not possible to include paintings, prints, Department, who prepared the textiles for large sculpture or architectural ornament in exhibition,; Marceline McKee, Senior a traveling exhibition, many of the objects Assistant for Loans, who coordinated the chosen reflect the important influence of loan recommendations; and Herbert these arts. We hope that the exhibition Moskowitz, Associate Registrar, and his staff, suggests to visitors the customs and daily who arranged for the transporting of the objects. life of the 16th century and the inspiration Our special thanks go to Herbert F. Schmidt, which the discoveries of the classical past Manager of the Museum's Design Department, and the New World had on the artists of who acted as consultant, and to the designers of the time. the exhibition, Allen Lubow and Deborah Prymas, of DeMartin, Marona, Cranstoun We acknowledge with appreciation the and Downes, Inc. advice and cooperation of the following members of the curatorial staff: Olga Linda Lovell Raggio, Chairman, and James Parker, Curator, Department of European Associate Museum Educator Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Laurence Department of Public Education Libin, Associate Curator in Charge, Department of Musical Instruments; Carmen Gomez-Moreno, Curator in Charge, and Margaret Frazer, Curator, Department of Medieval Art; and Helmut Nickel, Curator, Department of Arms and Armor. 1. INTERIOR WITH TWO WOMEN 3. LUTE SHOWING A PORTRAIT TO A MAN Wood, mother-of-pearl, ivory Tapestry fragment, wool and silk 31%" L x 14%" W. 68V4" H. x 58y2" W. Italian (Lombardy), 18th century Flemish (probably Brussels), about 1520-1525 The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Instruments, 1889 Friedsam, 1931 89.4.1023 32.100.390 The many references to the lute in 16th- The subject has been described as Margaret century literature (Shakespeare's plays and of Austria, showing a portrait of her Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, for example) betrothed, Philibert II, duke of Savoy, to her emphasize its expressiveness and delicacy father, Emperor Maximilian I. The man on in playing, its role as an accompaniment to the left resembles portraits of the emperor, the human voice, and its association with though he wears no signs of rank. Margaret courtly life. married Philibert in 1501. This tapestry was probably designed and woven about twenty Of all the instruments in use during the years later, based on the style of the Renaissance, the lute had the greatest solo costumes, the spaciousness of the interior, repertory, and was one of the first and the painterly shading of the colors. instruments to have independent instrumental music composed especially for it. 2. SGABELLO Walnut 40V2"H. x 20V4"W. x 16V2"D. Italian, first half of the 16th century. Bequest of Annie C. Kane, 1926 26.260.11 P A type of small side chair known as a sgabello IS was very popular during the Renaissance. The triangular back of this chair is derived D from tripod stools of the 15th century, ^- while the vase shape of the front and C back supports and its carved acanthus leaf ornament reflect the taste of the 16th century. s- 0~> 4. MEDAL: FRANCIS I, KING OF FRANCE 6. MEDAL: ISABELLA D' ESTE Bronze REVERSE: FIGURE OF ASTROLOGY 378" diameter Bronze French, about 1520-1530 1%" diameter Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1936 Italian (Mantua), by Giancristoforo 36.110.5 Romano, 1498 Bequest of Anne D. Thomson, 1923 The French king, patron of Leonardo da Vinci 23.280.20 and other Italian artists, has a youthful, confident air in this medal. The vivacious Marchioness of Mantua had a pervasive influence in early Renaissance intellectual life, at her own court and those of her fellow rulers as well. The palace at 5. MEDAL: CHARLES V, HOLY ROMAN Mantua housed her great library of ancient EMPEROR AND KING OF SPAIN and contemporary literature and the REVERSE: PHILIP II OF SPAIN studiolo, a kind of private museum and a Gilt-bronze place of meditation and tranquility much in 378" diameter favor among the Italian nobility during the Italian, mid-16th century Renaissance. Bequest of Rupert L. Joseph, 1959 60.55.54 Born in Flanders in 1500, Charles V was educated there at the court of his aunt, Margaret of Austria. As Holy Roman Emperor, his empire surpassed that of Charlemagne and reached beyond Europe to North Africa and the New World. On this medal, he wears the cuirass and laurel wreath of an ancient Roman emperor, an allusion also carried out in the Latin inscription. The reverse of the medal portrays his son Philip who succeeded him as King of Spain in 1558. 237202 7. MEDAL: MARY TUDOR, 9. TABLE CLOCK QUEEN OF ENGLAND Gilded brass, gilt-bronze, iron, copper Lead (resilvered) 2%" diameter 2%" H. x 4%" L x 47s" W. Italian (Milan), by Jacopo Nizolla da Trezzo, German, late 16th century about 1555 Gift of Mrs. Simon Guggenheim, 1929 Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1936 29.52.4 36.110.22 Whatever Renaissance clocks may have Mary, only child of Henry VIII and his first lacked in accuracy was compensated for in wife, Catherine of Aragon, came to the their rich decorations. The sides of this table throne at the age of thirty-eight in 1553. She clock frame reliefs of Abraham and the restored the Catholic Church in England Three Angels and the Drunkenness of Noah, and, because of the ensuing religious strife, after models by Peter Flotner, a Nuremberg acquired the unhappy nickname "Bloody sculptor and goldsmith. On the bottom Mary." plate is engraved the death scene of Pyramus and Thisbe, the play-within-a-play in This medal was probably made shortly after Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's the marriage of Mary and Philip II of Spain. Dream." The reverse illustrates The Judgment of Paris. 8. CLOTHES RACK Walnut 10. OIL LAMP 15%" H. x 52%" W. x 5%" D. Bronze Italian (Florence), second half of the 16th 6%" L. century Italian (Padua), in the manner of Andrea Gift of Stephen C. Millet, Jr., in memory of Riccio, early to mid-16th century Mary Goodrich Millet, 1968 Gift of Irwin C. Untermyer, 1964 68.34 64.101.1421 Racks such as this were used in the 15th and This little vessel has Bacchic imagery of a 16th centuries for hats or clothes. Florentine sort much relished in the early Renaissance. wood-carvers of the 16th century produced It has a dwarfish nude character riding on richly decorated pieces which were often the neck of a vine-draped donkey, both gilded and painted. The cornice, fluted familiar from antique scenes of the drunken pilasters, and cherub's head on this clothes processions of Bacchus. rack were inspired by the architectural details of classical ornament. 11. ALBARELLO 12. DOORKNOCKER Tin-enameled earthenware Bronze 10V4" H. 14y4" H. x 11%" W. Italian (Faenza), about 1500 Italian (Venice), late 16th century J. Pierpont Morgan Gift, 1965 Rogers Fund, 1940 65.6.4 40.14.6 The albarello, a tall cylindrical jar containing The standing female figure may represent medicinal plants or preparations, was used the goddess Hebe holding the elixir of in European pharmacies beginning in the eternal youth. The bottom end with late Middle Ages. Generally, the contents Medusa's mask was beaten against a metal were labeled on the parchment cover, but plate set in the door. Artists outdid each here the inscription Pionia (peony root) is other in providing fantastic but symmetrical painted on the side of the jar. The flower decorations for such doorknockers, the within the wreath is purely decorative and pride of noble entranceways. not meant as an illustration of the contents. Peony root, in small chips or ground into a powder, was applied as a means of 13. DISH FOR A EWER staunching bleeding. Tin-enameled and lustred earthenware 13 Vt" diameter Italian (Deruta), about 1515-1525 Gift of Julia A. Berwind, 1953 53.225.85 Since forks had only been invented in the 16th century and table linens were frequently shared, basins like this one were an essential companion to polite dining. Water from a ewer was poured over the hands and caught in a basin placed beneath. The raised ring at the center of this dish steadied the foot ring of the ewer (now missing). Deruta was famous for its rare lustred wares. The metallic lustre technique originated in the Middle East. When Spanish ceramics decorated in this technique were exported to Italy from the island of Majorca, the name majolica was given to this lustre ware which was also made in Italy.