Renaissance Medals
Book (italiano):
The National Gallery of Art houses the single most important collection of portrait medals in the United States. This two-volume catalogue examines in depth these holdings, comprising more than eight hundred medals. Providing detailed technical information-including the alloy composition of each medal-drawn from careful research, observation, and analysis, Renaissance Medals breaks new ground in the scholarly literature of the field. Included are objects from the Gallery's Widener Collection, the Baskin Collection, and other recent acquisitions. Medals from the Gallery's Samuel H. Kress Collection, previously published in a catalogue by G. F. Hill and J. Graham Pollard in 1967, are also examined.<br> <br> Volume 2 of <em>Renaissance Medals</em> documents the Gallery's collection of German medals of the sixteenth century, French baroque medals, and smaller, though no less significant, groups of Netherlandish and English medals. Guillaume Dupr�'s splendid gilded copper medal in the French group celebrates the second birthday of the heir, the future Louis XIII, son of Henri IV and Marie de' Medici. The medal's reverse depicts the king and queen in the guise of Roman deities Mars and Pallas Athena, with the child Louis holding the helmet of Mars and resting one foot on a dolphin.<br> <br> If a royal birthday was considered an occasion deserving a commemorative medal, so also was a battlefield victory. The impressive Waterloo Medallion, included in the English group, commemorates the final defeat of Napoleon. Pistrucci, the medal's creator, conceived his work as a statement of the personal triumph of the rulers and commanders involved.<br> <br> Interested readers should also refer to <em>Volume 1</em> of Renaissance Medals, which focuses on the Gallery's superb collection of Italian Renaissance medals-unique in their quality, number, and diversity. Both landmark volumes will serve scholars and specialists of Renaissance art, as well as those who appreciate history and culture.
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