Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence

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The Miraculous Draft of Fishes. From a nine-piece Acts of the Apostles. Design by Raphael, 1516. Woven in the workshop, or to the order, of Jan van Tieghem, Brussels, ca. 1545–57. Soprintendenza per Il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico e Demoetnoantropologico di Brescia, Cremona e Mantova. More about This Exhibition The first major tapestry survey in the United States in twenty-five years is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring. This landmark international loan exhibition features forty-one tapestries woven between 1420 and 1560 in the Netherlands, Italy, and France, from designs by the leading artists of the day—Raphael, Giulio Romano, and Bronzino, among others. The exhibition also includes about twenty preparatory drawings and designs. On view through June 19, 2002, "Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence" highlights the great tapestry cycles of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as among the unsung glories of Renaissance art. Philippe de Montebello, director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, commented on the exhibition: "This once-in-a-lifetime survey brings together the finest extant Renaissance tapestries—magnificent works that represent the pinnacle of aesthetic and technical achievement of this truly distinguished epoch. Created by the finest artists and craftsmen of the day for the wealthiest, most refined connoisseurs and patrons, these sumptuous tapestries still dazzle today as they did 500 years ago in the throne rooms, council chambers, and palazzi of Europe. Among the most prized possessions of many museums and royal collections, these works are rarely lent and—because of their size and fragility—a comparable exhibition is not likely to be undertaken in the foreseeable future." The exhibition is made possible in part by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Garen Family Foundation. An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Tapestry in the Renaissance The Objects on View and Installation Video Educational Programs Exhibition Organizer Exhibition Publication

Tapestry in the Renaissance
Between 1400 and 1700 the courts and churches of Europe lavished vast sums of money on tapestries woven from costly silks and gold thread. Considered the art form of kings, tapestries were a principal part of the ostentatious "magnificence" expected of any powerful ruler. Indeed, many of the works in this exhibition—most of which have never before been seen in America—are on loan from royal collections throughout Europe. The exhibition illuminates not only this most sumptuous art form's creation and stylistic development, but also the role that the medium played in the art and politics of the day.

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The Objects on View and Installation Video
The exhibition is organized chronologically with major emphasis given to the development of tapestry design in the Netherlands between 1500 and 1560 under the influence of designs and cartoons by Raphael and his followers, particularly Giovanni da Udine, Tommaso Vincidor, Giulo Romano, and Perino del Vaga. In addition to considering the achievement of these artists as tapestry designers in their own right, the exhibition investigates the influence their work had on Netherlandish designers, in particular Bernard van Orley, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, and Michiel Coxcie. Van Orley and his followers fused elements of the northern design tradition with Italianate innovations to produce an extraordinarily rich aesthetic that was ideally suited to the tapestry medium.

Smaller centers of tapestry production are also explored in this exhibition—notably those set up under princely patronage in France and Italy—with particular attention paid to the way in which local artists responded to the potential of the medium with widely divergent solutions. Unrestrained by established practices of Netherlandish production, the designs of artists like Tura, Mantegna, Bramantino, Bronzino, Salviati, and others were, invariably, much closer to the spirit of the Italian Renaissance than those of their northern counterparts. The exhibition focuses on the strengths and distinctions of these contemporaneous developments, and the cross-fertilization of ideas between Northern and Southern centers of production.

View a short video featuring one of the tapestries being installed in the Metropolitan's special exhibition galleries.

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Educational Programs
The Metropolitan has organized a variety of educational programs in conjunction with the exhibition. See the online calendar for a list of programs organized by date.

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Exhibition Organizer
"Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence" was organized by Thomas Campbell, associate curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts and supervising curator of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at the Metropolitan.

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Exhibition Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press. It is available in the Museum's bookshop and in the online Met Store.

Additional support for the exhibition and its accompanying publication has been provided by the Garen Family Foundation.

The exhibition catalogue is made possible by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Inc. and the Doris Duke Fund for Publications.

Additional support for the exhibition catalogue provided by
Furthermore, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund.

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