Renaissance masterpieces in terracotta, from Donatello to Riccio. On display in Padua

From February 15 to June 2, 2020, the Diocesan Museum of Padua is hosting the exhibition In Our Image. Renaissance Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Riccio, curated by Andrea Nante and Carlo Cavalli.

About twenty Renaissance terracotta sculptures from the Paduan territory will be on display to the public, evidence of the works that were kept in churches, convents, and abbeys. The exhibition is the result of an intensive recovery, study, research and restoration campaign thanks also to the awareness and fundraising campaign Mi sta a cuore.

The great presence of these sculptures in the area is due, according to the director of the Diocesan Museum of Padua and coordinator of the very prestigious scientific committee of the exhibition, Andrea Nante, to the existence in Padua of the workshop of Donatello, and later, of Bartolomeo Bellano, Giovanni De Fondulis and Andrea Riccio. Artists who very actively produced masterpieces in stone, marble, bronze, and even terracotta. Large group scenes, such as the Compianti, refined Madonnas with Child or images of saints intended for family devotion were then created in these workshops.

On the occasion of the exhibition, Andrea Riccio’s Lamentation, now divided in Padua between the church of San Canziano and the Civic Museums, will be reassembled. A number of previously unseen works will also be on public view, including a Madonna and Child rescued by a Poor Clare nun after the suppression of the Paduan convent of Santa Chiara in the Napoleonic era, kept until recently in the cloistered Monastery of the Visitation in Padua, and now restored to its original appearance by a major restoration. Then, for the first time, the surviving fragments of a Deposition, severely damaged in the bombing of the church of St. Benedict on March 11, 1944, will be displayed in a striking installation.

For info: www.museodiocesanopadova.it

Image: Giovanni de Fondulis, Madonna and Child, detail (Padua, Church of San Nicolò)

Renaissance masterpieces in terracotta, from Donatello to Riccio. On display in Padua

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