After more than 25 years, the conservation of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s doors for the Baptistery in Florence—called the Gates of Paradise—now in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, is nearing completion. This exhibition provides the American public with an unprecedented opportunity to see three of the doors' famous narrative reliefs, with their masterful retelling of Old Testament subjects, as well as four figural sections from their opulent surrounding frames, before they are permanently installed in the museum. The panels and elements from the doorframe—two of its supremely elegant figures of prophets and finely modeled heads set in roundels—represent the sculptor’s intense involvement in this project, a seminal monument of the Italian Renaissance, during the 27 years (1425–52) of its creation.
Accompanied by a catalogue. A symposium will be held in connection with this exhibition on Friday, November 16, 2007. Free with Museum admission; tickets and reservations not required. For more information, please contact lectures@metmuseum.org.
The exhibition is made possible by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Richardson.
Additional support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Oceanic Heritage Foundation.
The exhibition was organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in collaboration with the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence.
It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
