This exhibition focusses on a central work of European sculpture: Francesco Laurana’s (c. 1430–1502) Female Bust at the Kunstkammer Wien.
It is one of the few Renaissance marble busts with colouring. 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 somewhat fallen into oblivion 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. Petrarch wrote over three hundred touching poems for Laura in the fourteenth 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.
KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM WIEN
1871 bis 1891 von Karl Hasenauer und Gottfried von Semper erbaut, zählt das Kunsthistorische Museum Wien zu den bedeutendsten Museen der Welt. Die prachtvolle Architektur bildet einen würdigen Rahmen für die von den Habsburgern über Jahrhunderte zusammengetragenen Sammlungen. Sie umfassen Objekte aus fünf Jahrtausenden, von der Zeit des Alten Ägypten bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts.
In Love with Laura - A Mystery in Marble
20 Jun 2023 - 15 Oct 2023
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Maria-Theresien-Platz, Wien, Österreich
