Highlights Of The Silver In The Untermyer Collection Of English And Continental Decorative Arts

First Published in 2005. Silver is unique among the decorative arts in that its raw material is both inherently valuable and infinitely reusable. Its ownership has been a social bench-mark and its form has exercised the skills of sculptors, designers, chasers and engravers, but ultimately it could be, and normally was, melted down and refashioned quite without sentiment. Because of this constant recycling, the survival of any individual object is quite random and unrelated to its uniqueness or otherwise in its period. Hitherto plate historians have focused on individual objects almost to the exclusion of the context - social or economic - from which they came but now that context is seen as crucial in understanding historic plate. So in the first section of this book each chapter considers contemporary attitudes and usage.

Inspired by research undertaken for the new Medieval & Renaissance Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Re-thinking Renaissance Objects explores and often challenges some of the key issues and current debates relating to Renaissance art and culture. Puts forward original research, including evidence provided by an in-depth study arising from the Medieval & Renaissance Gallery project Contributions are unusual in their combination of a variety of approaches, but with each paper starting with an examination of the objects themselves New theories emerge from several papers, some of which challenge current thinking

he revival of the bronze statuette popular in classical antiquity stands out as an enduring achievement of the Italian Renaissance. These small sculptures attest to early modern artists' technical prowess, ingenuity, and desire to emulate—or even surpass—the ancients. From the studioli, or private studies, of humanist scholars in fifteenth-century Padua to the Fifth Avenue apartments of Gilded Age collectors, viewers have delighted in the mysteries of these objects: how they were made, what they depicted, who made them, and when. This catalogue is the first systematic study of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's European Sculpture and Decorative Arts collection of Italian bronzes. The collection includes statuettes of single mythological or religious figures, complex figural groups, portrait busts, reliefs, utilitarian objects like lamps and inkwells, and more. Stunning new photography of celebrated masterpieces by leading artists such as Antico, Riccio, and Giambologna; enigmatic bronzes that continue to perplex; quotidian objects; later casts; replicas; and even forgeries show the importance of each work in this complex field. International scholars provide in-depth discussions of 200 objects included in this volume, revealing new attributions and dating for many bronzes. An Appendix presents some 100 more complete with provenance and references. An essay by Jeffrey Fraiman provides further insight into Italian bronze statuettes in America with a focus on the history of The Met's collection, and Richard E. Stone, who pioneered the technical study of bronzes, contributes an indispensable text on how artists created these works and what their process conveys about the object's maker. A personal reminiscence by James David Draper, who oversaw the Italian sculpture collection for decades, rounds out this landmark catalogue that synthesizes decades of research on these beloved and complex works of art.