The first-ever public presentation of 101 works from the impressive group of Italian illuminated manuscripts assembled by Robert Lehman (1891-1969), one of the foremost American collectors of his day, opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 30, 2003. Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, on view through February 1, 2004, features some of the finest examples of the illuminator's art—many of them previously unknown even to scholars—produced in Italy from the 13th through the 16th century. Among the many important new discoveries presented in the exhibition is the only known illumination by the great Sienese master Duccio di Buoninsegna.
