Le Goût de la Renaissance. Un dialogue entre collections

Description

A follow-on to the exhibition at the Hôtel de la Marine, this book pays tribute to the exceptional inventiveness, talent and craftsmanship of Renaissance art, as well as to the fascination that this art has continued to exert on collectors for centuries.

Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Al Thani Collection are combined to present over 130 works and objects of decorative art - sculptures, goldsmiths' and silversmiths' pieces, jewellery, ceramics, glass, textiles, books, manuscripts, paintings, graphic works and curiosities. The exhibition will feature works by L'Antico, Lucas Cranach the Younger, François Clouet, Carlo Crivelli, Donatello, Nicholas Hilliard, Hans Holbein the Younger, and Leonardo da Vinci, as well as objets d'art commissioned from the most accomplished artists of the day by patrons from the royal families and the high aristocracy.

Opening with the history of the two institutions in conversation here - one born in the nineteenth century, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the other at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Al Thani Collection - the book is divided into ten thematic chapters, each giving rise to an analysis of remarkable pieces. It presents a previously unpublished corpus of works, some of which have never before been shown to the public. This is the case with some fifty works from the Al Thani Collection shown for the first time.