Description: | [Ed.] Scher. S. K. The Currency of Fame. Portrait Medals of the Renaissance. London, 1994. 424 pages, superb colour illustrations and plates throughout. Cloth, gilt, jacket.
This unparalleled study, the first book ever published on the great formative period of the portrait medal, accompanies a prestigious exhibtion at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Frick Collection, New York, and the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. It combines the expertise of thirty-one specialists with examples drawn from the finest collections in the world, both public and private. The medallions depict in the most fascinating details the faces and figures of the famous - Lorenzo de'Medici, Savonarola, Michelangelo, Erasmus, Durer, the monarchs of Europe - as well as those whose names live on purely through the splendour of the medals they commissioned. Over 170 magnificent specimens, dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, are discussed and illustrated, assembling the most striking Renaissance portraits ever carved or cast in wax, stone, wood, bronze, lead, silver or gold, often in combination with delightful allegories and scenes, or commemorations of important events. Individual chapters cover all the regions in which the art flourished - Italy, Germany, France, England and the Low Countries. It is impossible to conceive of the development of Renaissance art and culture without reference to the portrait medal. Now this great tradition is at last given its full due, in a thoroughgoing authoratitive presentation graced by reproductions of the highest quality. |  |
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