In Love with Laura: A Mystery in Marble

This exhibition focusses on a central work of European sculpture, Francesco Laurana’s “Female Bust”.  It is one of the few Renaissance marble busts with coloring. The work is one of the most significant creations of fifteenth century portrait sculpture. This small but prestigiously appointed exhibition is set to rekindle public interest in the exceptional importance of this object, which has been largely forgotten in the last decades. The exhibition will be the first to showcase a thesis formulated some time ago that this is a portrait of the mysterious Laura who was so deeply but unhappily beloved by the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch, who wrote over three hundred poems for her in the 14th century.

Next to masterpieces from the Kunsthistorisches Museum like Giorgione’s painting Laura, the exhibition will feature international loans from the Frick Collection in New York and the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence.

The exhibition runs from June 20- October 23, 2023 at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Maria-Theresien-Platz, Wien, 1010 Austria.

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For more events and exhibitions, please visit the ARC calendar.