The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s marble sculpture Adam by Tullio Lombardo (ca. 1455–1532) returned to public view late last fall following a 12-year conservation project, presented in a special exhibition in the Museum’s new Venetian Sculpture Gallery. Adam is now the focal point of this permanent gallery, in a niche inspired by its original location in a monumental tomb in Venice. The creation of this new space has encouraged the curatorial reassessment of the Met’s sculpture collection from this period. Tullio’s statue is joined by an exquisitely carved Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Cristoforo Solari (ca. 1460–1524), specially acquired for this gallery, and a newly conserved masterpiece by Tullio’s father, Pietro Lombardo, a Madonna and Child, whose attribution to Pietro was sometimes questioned in the past and that, as a consequence, has spent several decades in storage.
The new Venetian Sculpture Gallery, a perfect cube, was designed with Renaissance ideals of geometry and proportion in mind. It is a meditative environment that encourages sustained encounters with these important works.
The installation of this gallery was made possible by Assunta Sommella Peluso, Ignazio Peluso, Ada Peluso and Romano I. Peluso.
# # #August 28, 2015
Image: Tullio Lombardo (Italian, ca. 1455-1532). Adam (detail), ca. 1490-95. Italian, Venice. Marble. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Fletcher Fund, 1936 (36.163)