Title & Author:

The Currency of fame : portrait medals of the Renaissance / curator/editor, Stephen K. Scher ; photography, John Bigelow Taylor.

Publication:

New York : H.N. Abrams in association with the Frick Collection, 1994.

Description:

424 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm

Notes:
Catalog of an exhibition jointly sponsored by the Frick Collection and the National Gallery of Art, and held in New York and Washington, D.C.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 400-412) and index.
Foreword / Directors of the National Gallery, Washington and The Frick Collection, New York -- Introduction / Stephen K. Scher -- Prototypes: The Medals of the Duke of Berry, c. 1400 -- Italy, Fifteenth Century -- Italy, Sixteenth Century -- Germany, Sixteenth Century -- France, Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries -- England and the Low Countries, Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries.
Also issued online.

Summary:

The portrait medal was one of the key sculptural forms of the Renaissance, a manifesto for the humanist cult of personal fame and a vehicle for some of the finest artists of the age. Yet this most subtle and delicate variety of relief sculpture has chiefly been the province of collectors and connoisseurs, viewed as an intriguing branch of numismatics, rather than an art form in its own right. This study explores the great formative period of the portrait medal, and accompanies an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Frick Collection, New York. It combines the expertise of 31 specialists with examples drawn from the finest collections in the world, both public and private. The medallions depict in detail the faces and figures of the famous - Lorenzo de'Medici, Savonarola, Michelangelo, Erasmus, Dilrer, the monarchs of Europe - as well as those whose names live on purely through the splendour of the medals they commissioned. Over 170 specimens, dating from the 15th to the 17th centuries, are discussed and illustrated, assembling many of the most striking Renaissance portraits ever carved or cast, often in combination with allegories and scenes, or to commemorate particular events.

ISBN:

0810931915 (Abrams ; hard)
9780810931916 (Abrams ; hard)
0810925729 (museum ; pbk.)
9780810925724 (museum ; pbk.)

Subject:

Medals, Renaissance Exhibitions.
Portraits, Renaissance Exhibitions.
Médailles de la Renaissance Expositions.
Portraits de la Renaissance Expositions.
Medals, Renaissance.
Portraits, Renaissance.
Bildnis
Medaille
Ausstellung
Medailles.
Portretten.

Form/genre:

Ausstellung Washington (DC) 1994.
Exhibition catalogs.
exhibition catalogs.
Catalogues d'exposition.

Added entries:

Scher, Stephen K.
Frick Collection.
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Holdings:

Location: Library main 101540
Call No.: ID CJ6094.C87; ID:94-B1423
Status: Available