Renaissance And Baroque Treasury Art

The Green Vault is the most magnificent treasure chamber museum in Europe Home to the Dresden Green Diamond, the Green Vault houses more than 120 precious objects, most of them dating from the Renaissance through to the late Baroque period Housed in the Residence Palace of Dresden, this storehouse of treasures displays, some of the most important works of European culture.

Winters introduces Richard Flagg and Erma Flagg's collection of some hundred objects made during 1450 to 1900. Most of the beautifully crafted, highly decorative, yet functional pieces are examples of Renaissance and Baroque marvels; they include clocks (a particularly varied and sumptuaous collection), sculpture, inlaid boxes, china and glassware, tankards, metalwork, and furniture. Each of the 77 individual chefs-d'oeuvres documented in this catalog, celebrating the gift of the Flaggs to the Milwaukee Art Museum, are exceptional examples of artisty combined with technical achievement. Such is the case with a 15th-century Cassone from Florence replete with intarsia and coat of arms, signaling a marital alliance between the nobility. Another magnificent piece, highlighted through an individual entry in the catalog, is a 15th-century limestone tympanum, possibly from the Burgundy region of France, showing the enthroned Virgin and Child. The physical properties of this volume are as elaborate as the objects it defines; lavish full-page color plates illustrate the pieces, lengthy catalog entries provide detailed information, and the whole is supplemented with appendixes consisting of checklist and glossary. 69 colour & 29 b/w illustrations

During the eighteenth century, porcelain held significant cultural and artistic importance. This collection represents one of the first thorough scholarly attempts to explore the diversity of the medium's cultural meanings. Among the volume's purposes is to expose porcelain objects to the analytical and theoretical rigor which is routinely applied to painting, sculpture and architecture, and thereby to reposition eighteenth-century porcelain within new and more fruitful interpretative frameworks. The authors also analyze the aesthetics of porcelain and its physical characteristics, particularly the way its tactile and visual qualities reinforced and challenged the social processes within which porcelain objects were viewed, collected, and used. The essays in this volume treat objects such as figurines representing British theatrical celebrities, a boxwood and ebony figural porcelain stand, works of architecture meant to approximate porcelain visually, porcelain flowers adorning objects such as candelabra and perfume burners, and tea sets decorated with unusual designs. The geographical areas covered in the collection include China, North Africa, Spain, France, Italy, Britain, America, Japan, Austria, and Holland.

Detailing the contents of the "Gr�nes Gew�lbe"—or Green Vault—this catalog surveys the Treasury of the Saxonian Kings, depicting the collections of August the Strong, King of Saxony and Poland. The study illustrates how the museum was unparalleled in its time and maintains its distinction today with an extravagant profusion of precious objects in the gold, silver, enamel, and precious stones that proclaimed the wealth and artistic taste of the Saxon dynasty. Capturing a treasure trove from the early 18th century, this examination presents the vault's eight exquisitely decorated display rooms designed to inspire amazement in visitors.

"In the royal and princely courts of Europe, artworks made of multicolored semiprecious stones were passionately coveted objects. Known as pietre dure, or hardstones, this type of artistic expression includes?paintings in stone,? which were composed of intricately cut separate pieces that were made into magnificent tabetops, cabinets, and wall decorations. Other works included vessels and ornaments carved with virtuosic skill from a single piece of rare and brilliant lapis lazuli, chalcedony, jasper, or similarly prized substance; exquisite objects such as boxes, clocks, and jewelry; and portraits of nobles sculpted in variously colored stones. Derived from ancient Roman decorative stonework, the art of pietre dure was developed in Renaissance Florence, where the manufacture of such objects was enthusiastically sponsored by Medici princes. Ideally suited for ostentatious display, the works sent an unmistakable message of wealth and political might that was understood in centers of power everywhere. From Italy the medium spread across Europeto Prague, Madrid, Naples, Paris, and later Saint Petersburg. Precious and fragile, pietre dure objects are rarely brought together in large numbers. This richly illustrated catalogue contains more than 150 masterworks from across Europe, dating from five centuries, including almost every artistic use of semiprecious stone during this time as well as some of the finest examples of the medium. Eight essays by European and American experts discuss the individualized development of pietre dure in every European region, the latest developments in scholarship, the interrelationships between art and dynastic politics and between cultures, and a variety of techniques used to produce these luxurious masterworks."--Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, German clockwork automata were collected, displayed, and given as gifts throughout the Holy Roman, Ottoman, and Mughal Empires. In Animating Empire, Jessica Keating recounts the lost history of six such objects and reveals the religious, social, and political meaning they held. The intricate gilt, silver, enameled, and bejeweled clockwork automata, almost exclusively crafted in the city of Augsburg, represented a variety of subjects in motion, from religious figures to animals. Their movements were driven by gears, wheels, and springs painstakingly assembled by clockmakers. Typically wound up and activated by someone in a position of power, these objects and the theological and political arguments they made were highly valued by German-speaking nobility. They were often given as gifts and as tribute payment, and they played remarkable roles in the Holy Roman Empire, particularly with regard to courtly notions about the important early modern issues of universal Christian monarchy, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the encroachment of the Ottoman Empire, and global trade. Demonstrating how automata produced in the Holy Roman Empire spoke to a convergence of historical, religious, and political circumstances, Animating Empire is a fascinating analysis of the animation of inanimate matter in the early modern period. It will appeal especially to art historians and historians of early modern Europe. E-book editions have been made possible through support of the Art History Publication Initiative (AHPI), a collaborative grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Il volume è il catalogo della mostra itinerante di Amburgo, (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 10 giugno - 26 settembre 2004), New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26 ottobre 2004 - 30 gennaio 2005), Roma (Palazzo Ruspoli, 2 marzo 25 aprile 2005), dedicata agli splendidi oggetti provenienti dalla Corte di Dresda, esposti per la prima volta dopo il restauro. Gli oggetti in mostra, databili tra il tardo Rinascimento e il primo Barocco, vanno dalle armi alle armature, alle sculture, ai preziosi scrigni in oro e avorio, agli abiti e ai ritratti. Il catalogo fornisce una documentazione completa di una delle più ricche collezioni di arte principesca.