Gondola Ride (A page from a larger work "Book of Italian Costumes")Niclauss Kippell (German) 1588
And they plan Great Exhibits! I know where I'll be this fall. In celebration of my birthday I'm going to their upcoming show:
Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe
This is particularly timely for me because I have spent the last few days working on a page of black folks in period art. One of my personal challenges as a reenactor of color has been finding a plausible persona which *includes* (rather than ignores) my actual ethnic heritage. I've been scouring the web looking for the occasional images I can remember seeing of people of African heritage just living their lives in Venice, or Amsterdam, or wherever. They are there, yes, but terribly hard to locate...and then here comes The Walters Art Museum with an entire show which not only discusses the history and art of the period but also what has happened to the works over time.
(Apparently the little Medici girl in the painting below was painted out in the 19th Century and rediscovered during cleaning. Wrap your head around that.)
I can hardly wait for the show!
Portrait of Maria Salviati de Medici and Gulia de Medici, Jacopo Pontormo, 1600
Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland
