Providing inspiration for travels across Europe, new perspectives on historic art abound in this month’s issue. Federica Gigante presents fascinating research on a late thirteenth-century fresco in Ferrara that depicts a full scale representation of a portable Islamic tent – an extraordinary and splendid textile ensemble that was redeployed in a Christian context. Important Lucchese patronage in Papal Avignon is analysed by Geoffrey Nuttall, who has closely studied the chapel of Carlo Spiafame in the cathedral of Notre-Dame-des-Doms. Meanwhile, two works by Artemisia Gentileschi from the collection of King Frederick II are assessed afresh by Franziska Windt, who considers their origins, display and critical history. The celebrated sculpture by Lorenzo Bartolini ‘The Campbell sisters dancing a waltz’ – owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh – is provided with a rich new context in an article by Lucy Wood and Timothy Stevens highlighting William Campbell’s patronage of Bartolini, which has hitherto been ignored.
Exhibitions reviewed include ‘Hand in Hand: Sculpture and colour in the Golden Age’ by Karin Hellwig, ‘Dürer to Van Dyck: Drawings from Chatsworth House’ by Olenka Horbatsch and ‘Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael’ by Grant Lewis. An extensive range of new books being assessed range from ‘The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: Oxford and the Southeast’ by William Whyte, ‘The Kennicott Bible’ by Frederica Law-Turner, ‘The Medici Series: Corpus Rubenianum’ by Christopher Brown and ‘The Radical Print’, by Elizabeth Savage.
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