Gallery 604 - Domestic Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence

Part of European Paintings

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Wealthy Florentine merchants and bankers and members of prominent families commissioned portraits for posterity. Marriage was often commemorated with a pair of large storage chests (cassoni) with painted fronts illustrating emblematic stories from Greek and Roman mythology or the Old Testament. Marriage chambers might be decorated with painted panels set into wainscoting or above the backrest of a daybed or bench, and large, ceremonial trays celebrated the birth of an heir (the Museum owns that of Lorenzo de' Medici). Sets of ceramic tableware were acquired and conspicuously displayed. In this gallery, secular art takes its place alongside religious painting as a mainstay of the artist's world.

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