Marriage in Renaissance Art Shows

Two exhibitions at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art deal with love and matrimony as revealed by works of Renaissance art.

Love and marriage in the art of Renaissance Italy are the subjects of two exhibitions at American museums this year.

The recently reopened Bowdoin College Museum of Art will host Beauty and Duty: The Art and Business of Renaissance Marriage (March 25-July 22, 2008). Taking its name from a sonnet by Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the show examines the role of art in rituals and celebrations associated with marriage during the Renaissance. The loan exhibition's centerpiece is a Florentine cassone (chest) panel painted with Scenes from Boccaccio's "Il Ninfale Fiesolano" (ca. 1415-1420), recently attributed to Fra Angelico (ca. 1390/95-1455).

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Love and Marriage in Italian Renaissance Art (November 11, 2008-February 16, 2009). Featured are marriage portraits, cassone panels from bridal chests, paintings promoting sensual love and fertility, boxes, jewelry, glassware, maiolica (tin-glazed pottery) and works of art on paper. The Met's oil on canvas Venus and Cupid (ca. 1525), a popular Venetian subject full of symbolism and painted by Lorenzo Lotto (ca. 1480-1556), is a highlight of the exhibition.