World Culture: Masterpieces of Italian Portraiture displayed in Berlin

On August 25 at Bode-Museum in Berlin opened an exhibition of portraits by Italian Renaissance masters called “Renaissance Faces. Masterpieces of Italian Portraiture”.

To the Bode Museum, located on the Museum Island, were brought over 150 artworks – from paintings to sculptures, which debut as one collection. The exposition features works by Italian artists of early Renaissance from the collections of Louvre, London National Gallery and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The exhibition gives a glimpse into the history of Italian portraiture that was influenced by antiquity and Dutch portraits of 15th century. The museum showcases works by Pisanello, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci, including “Lady with an Ermine”. This portrait, created between 1489 and 1490, was offered by the Czartoryski Museum located in Kraków.

The museum in Berlin gathered the portrait collection jointly with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From Berlin the exhibition will travel to Metropolitan to run there from December 19 to March 18, 2012.