The Victoria and Albert Museum has one of the greatest collections of Medieval and Renaissance art and design, ranging in date from about 300 to 1600 A.D. This book brings together some of the treasures of the collection, ranging in size from miniature to monumental. The works may be instantly recognizable as extraordinary examples of artistic achievement, but they also have complex stories to tell. Beyond their primary purpose—be it to inspire devotion or to act as an official gift—their materials, decoration, and form would have signaled the status of those who owned or received them. In some cases, circulation, modification and reuse have also added multiple layers to the objects’ histories. In three sections, ‘Status and Display,’ ‘Piety and Devotion’, and ‘The Secular World,’ the fascinating stories behind 35 masterpieces from the V&A’s collection are revealed and the objects themselves illustrated in detail. Great ivory carvings include the Late Antique Symmachi panel, made in Rome in about 400 A.D. for patrician patrons; the Lorsch Gospels cover, produced at the court of Charlemagne in around 800 A.D.; and the only Byzantine statuette of the Virgin and Child to be carved entirely in the round. There are goldsmiths’ works from the Romanesque period and one of the largest and most splendid of the Limoges enamel caskets dedicated to Saint Thomas Becket. Renaissance bronzes include the magnificent ‘Martelli Mirror’ and works by Donatello, Antico, and Hubert Gerhard. Also included are virtuoso wood sculptures by the German master Veit Stoss and the enigmatic Netherlandish sculptor called the Master of Elsloo, and the book concludes with one of the precious notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.

90 pages, 70 illustrations (65 in full color), 7 1/2 in. x 8 1/2 in. Hardcover; clothbound, with jacket.

Medieval & Renaissance Treasures from the V&A
03-020633
Member Price: $24.75 each
Non-Member Price: $27.50 each


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