224 pages, hardback, 260 x 216 mm, 100 illustrations
PRICE: £40.00
ISBN: 978 1 907372 02 5
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Michelangelo's masterpiece The Dream (or Il Sogno) has been described as one of the finest of all Italian Renaissance drawings and is amongst The Courtauld Gallery's greatest treasures. Executed in c. 1533, when Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was at the height of his career, this magnificent work exemplifies Michelangelo's unrivalled skill as draughtsman and his extraordinary powers of invention. Accompanying an exhibition at the Courtauld, this catalogue examines this celebrated work in the context of an exceptional group of closely related drawings by Michelangelo, as well as some of his original letters and poems and works by his contemporaries.
The Dream is one of Michelangelo's 'presentation drawings', a magnificent and famous group of highly refined compositions which the artist gave to his closest friends. These beautiful and complex works transformed drawings into an independent art form and are amongst Michelangelo's very finest creations in any medium. The Dream was probably one of a superb group made for a young Roman nobleman with whom Michelangelo was in love, Tommaso de' Cavalieri, who was celebrated for his outstanding beauty, gracious manners and intellect. This group is studied in the book and includes The Punishment of Tityus, The Fall of Phaeton, A Bacchanal of Children and The Rape of Ganymede. In his Life of Michelangelo (1568) the biographer and artist Giorgio Vasari praised these exceptional works as "drawings the like of which have never been seen" - and they are still regarded as amongst the greatest single series of drawings ever made.
"One of the greatest (yet smallest) shows you will ever see."
Laura Cumming, The Observer
"An intriguing exhibition …. By far and away the most accomplished study of the subject yet."
Brian Sewell, Evening Standard
"A curatorial and scholarly triumph ... the catalogue essays do full justice to the power of Michelangelo's intellect, as well as to hand and eye."
Richard Dorment, Telegraph
"A sensational exhibition in more ways than one …. It is the most intimate encounter with Michelangelo yet staged by a British gallery."
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
The portly figure of Henry VIII depicted by Holbein may be very familiar, but this book reveals much more about the portrait, the sitter, the artist and his workshop. It gathers together and analyses the several copies and variants of Holbein’s Whitehall cartoon of Henry VIII, more than one of which is by the only significant painter immediately after Holbein in England, Hans Eworth. More
This publication will be the only available English-language monograph to date on sixteenth-century sculptor Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, also known as Antico. Given Antico’s importance for the history of sculpture this book is a much needed resource in the field and will present new scientific research and the results of technical studeis to be undertaken at the National Gallery of Art. A series of essays places Antico’s life, work and technique in a contextual framework useful for understanding his body of work. In addition to providing an overview of the artist’s acareer, the catalogue will also address key topics topics from his workmanship and craft to his relationship with the court of Mantua. More
The Courtauld’s Adam and Eve is arguably the most beautiful of Cranach’s fifty or more depictions of this subject. It brilliantly combines devotional meaning with pictorial elegance and invention. This exhibition catalogue explores the making and meaning of this Protestant and courtly masterpiece, and the contexts in which it was made and seen. It incorporates much conservation and technical research. More
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. More
A very handsome addition to any art library" (Art Times) "There is a wealth of information, scholarly insight, and sound reasoning in this work, which serves as both a tribute to one man and a contribution to art history." (Library Journal Reviews) More
This illuminated manuscript, a gradual of large size which the whole congregation of monks could see and read as they sang in choir (just as they are shown doing in an illustration in the manuscript itself), was previously unknown to scholars and has only recently come to light. It was clearly produced for a monastery of the Olivetan order, a branch of the Benedictines with a particular reverence for the Virgin Mary – probably Santa Maria di Baggio near Milan. More
There can be few examples of intensive fashioning and self-fashioning by a Renaissance figure more remarkable than Prince Henry (1594-1612). Two decades after the appearance of Roy Strong's revelatory Henry Prince of Wales and England's Lost Renaissance this collection of essays re-examines the extraordinary artistic and cultural response to Prince Henry and presents many new findings in the context of recent scholarship. More