Luxury Arts of the Renaissance


Book Description

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.







Library Catalog


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Dutch and Flemish Furniture


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Reproduction of the original: Dutch and Flemish Furniture by Esther Singleton




Art and Auctions


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A Blessing of Unicorns


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This Bulletin examines the fascinating stories behind the only known sets of unicorn tapestries in the world—one at The Met Cloisters and another at the Musée de Cluny, Paris. The thirteen tapestries that compose the two sets—six at the Cluny and seven at The Met—remain shrouded in mystery, with their origins and original owners still unknown. Considering the iconography of these two collections together and drawing from primary sources, this Bulletin aims to reach a better understanding of these masterworks and their mythical subject that has captured the public imagination for centuries.




La Grande Encyclopédie


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The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal


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The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 4 is a compendium of articles and notes pertaining to the Museum’s permanent collections of decorative arts. This volume includes an introduction and two articles by Gillian Wilson, Curator of Decorative Arts. Volume 4 also features articles by Jiří Frel, the Museum’s Curator of Antiquities; Edith Standen, Curatorial Consultant, Department of Western European Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Geraldine Hussman, California State University at Northridge; Jean-Luc Bordeaux, Professor of Art History and Director of the Fine Arts Gallery, California State University at Northridge; and Faya Causey, University of California, Santa Barbara.




Mark Bradford


Book Description

Text by Malik Gaines, Ernest Hardy, Philippe Vergne, Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson.