Starting this fall, The Frick Collection will present the first ever exhibition to focus on Siena as a center of artistic excellence and technical innovation in bronze sculpture during the Italian Renaissance. Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500 brings together nearly forty works—including statues, reliefs, candelabra, medals, and more—by some of the most influential sculptors in this period, among them Donatello, Vecchietta, and Francesco di Giorgio. Owing to their size and importance, many of these objects have never been shown outside of Tuscany, let alone in the United States.
Building on popular past presentations of bronze sculpture at the Frick, the exhibition invites visitors to appreciate the medium’s extraordinary beauty and versatility while learning about the complex technical and political challenges that Sienese bronzeworkers faced. The Art of Bronze is organized by Giulio Dalvit, the Frick’s Associate Curator, who has also authored an accompanying catalogue alongside a team of international contributors.
Italian lenders to the exhibition include the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples; the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia; the Museo Diocesano Albani, Urbino; and the Museo Civico, Siena. Other major lenders include the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and collections in Berlin, Dresden, and Vienna.
Commented Dalvit, “Between 1450 and 1500, almost nowhere in Italy did local artistic traditions rely so heavily on a single medium as Siena’s did on bronze. Yet, the Tuscan city has been celebrated chiefly for its paintings—as demonstrated by the landmark exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350, presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery, London, in 2024–25. Now, we are excited to bring long-overdue attention to Sienese bronze sculpture, exploring both the medium’s and the city’s underappreciated importance in Renaissance art history. Uniting some forty masterworks for the first time in one location, this exhibition highlights the revelatory achievements of Sienese artists, which constitute nothing short of a golden age of bronze sculpture.”
A hilltop town in Tuscany, Siena was a crucial center of artistic innovation in Renaissance Italy, owing in part to its position as one of the most important pilgrimage stops on the Via Francigena, which connected Rome to France and England. After it was defeated in the 1550s by Florence, Siena stood in its rival city’s political and cultural shadow, framed as the epitome of the medieval past. This exhibition challenges that perception by providing an in-depth survey of Siena’s unparalleled achievements in sculpture, as well as offering a study of bronze as a medium in all its complexity. Through small-scale jewel-like works, visionary reliefs, and breathtakingly ambitious life-size statues, the show will take visitors on a journey through the remarkable diversity of forms that Sienese sculptors were able to achieve.
Exhibition Catalogue
Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500 will be accompanied by a scholarly catalogue that provides an overview of Siena’s entire bronze production, essays on the different types of works on display, and entries for each object in the show. These texts are complemented by new photography of nearly all of Siena’s surviving fifteenth-century bronzes, newly discovered archival documents, and extensive scientific analysis coordinated by Victoria Schussler, Associate Conservator at the Frick.
The catalogue is authored by Dalvit with extensive contributions by an international group of esteemed scholars: Machtelt Brüggen Israëls (University of Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum), Giampaolo Ermini (independent scholar), Gabriele Fattorini (University of Florence), Laura Goldenbaum (Humboldt Forum, Berlin), Scott Nethersole (Radboud University, Nijmegen), Alison Wright (University College London), and Giulia Zaccariotto (Accademia Carrara, Bergamo).
The hardcover volume of about 400 pages in length is published by The Frick Collection in association with Paul Holberton Publishing ($60; Frick members: $48 in-store, $54 online). The book will be available for purchase in the Museum Shop, online at shop.frick.org, or by contacting shop@frick.org or 212.547.6849.
The publication is made possible by Clémence and William von Mueffling and the Robert Lehman Foundation.
Exhibition Support
Louis Vuitton
Leadership support is provided by an anonymous donor in honor of Ian Wardropper and by Margot and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Elizabeth M. and Jean-Marie R. Eveillard, and The Christian Humann Foundation.
Major support is provided by Clémence and William von Mueffling, Fondazione Bracco, the Robert Lehman Foundation, the David L. Klein, Jr. Foundation, The Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund for Exhibition Programming, and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
Additional support is provided by Filippo Benappi; Andrew Butterfield and Claire Schiffman; The Helen Clay Frick Foundation; Mr. and Mrs. Hubert L. Goldschmidt; Jon and Barbara Landau; Wendy Lewison; Carlo Orsi, Trinity Fine Art; Jane Richards; Sabina and Harlan Stone; the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation; Bosilika An; Eric Blair-Joannou; Loren Davis; Bailey Foote; and Alexander Mason Hankin.
About The Frick Collection
Housed in one of New York City’s last great Gilded Age homes, The Frick Collection provides intimate encounters with one of the world’s foremost collections of fine and decorative arts. Open since 1935, the institution originated with Henry Clay Frick, who bequeathed his Fifth Avenue residence and collection of European paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts for the enjoyment of the public. The museum’s holdings, which encompass masterworks from the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century, have grown over the decades, more than doubling in number since the opening of the museum. The Frick Art Research Library, founded more than one hundred years ago by Henry Clay Frick’s daughter, Helen Clay Frick, is a leading art history research center that serves students, scholars, and the public.
For more information, please visit frick.org.
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