To Love, Honor, and Obey? Stories of Italian Renaissance Marriage Chests
To Love, Honor, and Obey? Stories of Italian Renaissance Marriage Chests
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia, PA
Opening July 3, 2010
In Renaissance Italy, betrothal and marriage were celebrated with a variety of events as well as commemorative works of art. Often elaborate, these objects marked the joining of a couple while symbolizing wealth and demonstrating alliances between powerful families. Particularly significant were cassoni, large storage chests produced in pairs and typically used to hold the bride’s dowry. In mid-fifteenth-century Florence, these chests were sometimes paraded through the city in wedding processions. As part of the domestic interior, the chests were designed to complement the other furnishings in the new couple’s bedchamber.
Cassoni in museum collections typically consist of painted panels from chests that were dismantled long ago. This exhibition includes two complete chests and related painted panels in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, all produced in Tuscany in the mid- to late-fifteenth century. The display considers the contexts for which marriage chests were made and used, techniques employed by craftsmen in producing them, and the sources and meanings of the decoration. Usually representing moral exemplars intended for the education of the married couple—particularly the wife—the tales and images that decorate cassoni provide insight into Renaissance Italian art, life, and society.
Curated by Jack Hinton • Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture
Exhibit to be held in Gallery 209, second floor in the Main Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The PMA is located at 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, in Philadelphia, PA. Museum Hours for the Main Building are Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Select galleries are open Friday evenings until 8:45 p.m.
General Admission is as follows:
Members - Free at all times
Adults - $16; Seniors (ages 65 & over)- $14
Students (with valid ID)- $12
Children (excluding groups)
ages 13–18- $12
ages 12 & under- Free
For more information go to www.philamuseum.org/
Image Credit~
Marriage Chest with Ceres Searching for Her Daughter, Proserpina, 1475-1500
Italian
Wood with painted and gilded plaster decoration
36 5/8 x 79 1/2 x 28 3/8 inches (93 x 201.9 x 72.1 cm)
Purchased with the Joseph E. Temple Fund, 1944