Religious Paintings from the Italian Renaissance
17 Renaissance Paintings from a Distinguished Private Collection Sold without Reserve
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he 17 paintings that follow, offered without reserve in the 22 May Master Paintings auction, illustrate the diversity of religious art in the Italian Renaissance, including works by well-known artists as well as anonymous masters about whom we still have much to learn. Several regions of Italy and 500 years of art history are represented, beginning with a Florentine dossal dating to 1280 and spanning to a Venetian depiction of a saint from the 1730s. While styles changed drastically from early gold ground paintings to the Rococo, the recurrence of Catholic subject matter and iconography speaks to its lasting importance for Italian audiences in the early modern period.