Venues
Events
MediaFeature
Modeling Devotion
Terracotta exhibit at Gardner Museum
Giovanni de Fondulis, Deposition of Christ and Carlotta of Lusignano (details of the Virgin and Christ), ca. 1480 Courtesy of Isabella Gardner Museum
| | More
The Isabella Gardner Museum is set to present an exhibit that brings new attention to a lost art form and a lost artist. Modeling Devotion: Terracotta Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance concentrates on new discoveries about Isabella Gardner’s terracotta sculptures. The exhibit, Organized by Alan Chong, William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection, and Valentine Talland, Senior Objects Conservator will be on display February 25–May 23, 2010.
“The beauty and significance of painted terracotta sculpture of the Italian Renaissance is only now being appreciated,” says Alan Chong, the William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and exhibition curator. “This new attention has helped us identify the maker of one of our most impressive works, the Deposition of Christ by the almost completely unknown Giovanni de Fondulis.” The artist in question, Giovanni de Fondulis, finds his time in the spotlight with this exhibition. Virtually unknown prior to the Gardner Museum’s extensive investigation, de Fondulis specialized in terracotta sculptures with exceptional emotional depth. Remarkable is that his work has survived more than six hundred years. Terracotta sculptures rarely survive in their complete forms and even more rarely maintain their paint; the terracottas in Modeling Devotion are a different story. Maintained in pristine condition and recently restored, the collection does a great deal to inform us about a nearly lost art form.
Modeling Devotion: Terracotta Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance will be shown at the Isabella Gardner Museum beginning February 25, 2010. For more information and for exhibition hours, please visit www.gardnermuseum.org.