The Art of Devotion: Panel Painting in Early Renaissance Italy

At heart a collaborative venture, the creation of early fifteenth-century panel paintings in Italy depended upon a tight network of connections between patrons, painters, woodworkers, and gilders. The product of these interactions was an object that served both as a focus for devotion, and as an emphatic statement about wealth and status. This exhibition catalogue illustrates works in ten different collections and explores how these objects were made and what they reveal to us about those who produced and owned them. Featuring artists such as Giovanni del Biondo, Giovanni dal Ponte, Gentile da Fabriano, and Lippo d'Andrea, the catalogue essays and entries explore the ways in which these works--often described as "conservative," or "late Gothic," offer a more authentic view of the early Renaissance, one that balances our notion of a time and place characterized solely by departures from tradition.

KATHERINE SMITH ABBOTT teaches in the department of the history of art and architecture and serves as associate dean of Middlebury College. WENDY WATSON is the curator of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. ANDREA ROTHE is a private conservator who formerly worked as chief paintings conservator at the J. Paul Getty Museum.