Decorative arts
Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The Courtauld Wedding Chests
300 x 260 mm, 128 pages, paperback, 80 colour illustrations
PRICE: £25.00
ISBN: 9781 903470916
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Caroline Campbell
Accompanying an exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, this catalogue explores one of the most important and historically neglected art forms of Renaissance Florence: cassoni – pairs of chests that were lavishly decorated with precious metals and elaborate paintings and were often the most expensive of a whole suite of decorative objects commissioned to celebrate marriage alliances between powerful families.
Cassoni were displayed in the husband’s chamber and were used to store precious items such as clothes and textiles. The painted panels set into them told tales and history from ancient Greece, Rome and Palestine, as well as from Florentine literature and more recent history. These beautifully told and highly crafted pictorial narratives were intended to entertain as well as to instruct the household and its visitors.
The catalogue reflects the extensive iconographic range of cassone painting. Its focus, however, is around two of The Courtauld’s great treasures: the pair of chests ordered in 1472 by the Florentine Lorenzo Morelli to celebrate his marriage with Vaggia Nerli. These are the only pair of cassoni to be still displayed with their painted backboards (spalliere). The unusual survival of both the chests and their commissioning documents enables a full examination of this remarkable commission.
Accompanies an exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, London
12 February – 17 May 2009
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WINNER of The Art Newspaper / AXA Exhibition Catalogue Award 2007.
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