Exhibition of The Met's World-Renowned Renaissance Maiolica Now on View Our Coverage Sponsored by Table D’Hote
Plate with the Visconti arms, ca. 1480-1500. Italian, probably Deruta. Maiolica (tin-glazed earthenware); Overall (confirmed): H. 3 5/16 x Diam. 15 in. (8.4 x 38.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Fletcher Fund, 1946 (46.85.16)
Led by Executive Chef and Owner Bill Knapp, Table D'Hote is among the most elite and coveted culinary destinations of Manhattan's prestigious Upper East side. Reminiscent of a French countryside in ambiance paired with locally sourced ingredients that entice guests to return again and again, Table D'Hote is truly an undiscovered gem to those that have not yet started to frequent this venue. Bill graduated from The Culinary Institute of America in 1994 and has worked at several established restaurants in New York City including The "21" Club, Patroon, and Bryant Park Grill, before making his way to Danny Meyer's and Tom Colicchio's famed Gramercy Tavern. On September 9th, 2011, Bill re-opened Table d'Hote in New York City, at 44 East 92nd Street, a well-respected establishment since 1978. By executing great dishes with a seasonally inspired menu and maintaining a subtle ambiance, Bill impresses all that travel from near and far with his extensive diverse New York experience, creative approaches, desire, and passion for food that culminates in a truly unparalleled dining experience.Whom You Know has Highly Recommended Table D'Hote:http://www.whomyouknow.com/2012/08/peachy-picks-table-dhote-our-coverage.html
***
Exhibition Dates:
October 20, 2016–May 29, 2017
Exhibition Location:
Wrightsman Exhibition Gallery, Gallery 521
This exhibition of Renaissance maiolica from The Met's world-renowned collection celebrates the publication of Maiolica, Italian Renaissance Ceramics in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Timothy Wilson. As Wilson has written, "Painted pottery, at its most ambitious, is a serious form of Italian Renaissance art, with much to offer those interested in the wider culture of this astoundingly creative period." This creativity was applied to a vast range of practical objects. Renaissance Maiolica: Painted Pottery for Shelf and Table explores the relationships among decoration, function, and display so critical to maiolica and yet so different from those of canvas or panel paintings of the same period. It includes tableware and serving vessels, desk accessories, storage containers, devotional objects, as well as sculpture, all made in painted and tin-glazed earthenware.
The maiolica tradition flourished from the 15th to the 17th century. Italian potters transformed techniques that they owed to the Islamic world into something entirely unprecedented, and in turn laid the foundations for other tin-glazed pottery traditions in Europe. Renaissance potters and pottery painters exploited innovations of the Renaissance goldsmith, sculptor, and painter in what was a relatively humble medium. That it was owned by the social elite of Italy testifies, however, to its artistic value.
Renaissance Maiolica explores how the different functions of painted pottery dictated the ways it was seen and decorated. Groups of objects are installed in displays suggestive of their use. An assembly of storage jars give a sense of a pharmacist's shop. Among the tableware on display are istoriato plates and dishes—their surfaces covered with scenes from mythology and ancient history—from important services commissioned by leading Italian families. The exhibition also shows maiolica-makers using ceramic, glaze, and pigments to compete with other art forms, including a Madonna and Child that imitates a framed panel painting. Also on view is a stunning Lamentationsculpture that likely once functioned as an altarpiece. It is the largest known example of sculptural maiolica to survive and has not been on public view in recent years.
The exhibition is organized by Peter Jonathan Bell, Assistant Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication, Maiolica, Italian Renaissance Ceramics in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Timothy Wilson, with an essay by Luke Syson, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chairman of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met. Timothy Hugh Wilson is Barrie and Deedee Wigmore Research Keeper in the Department of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum, Professor of the Arts of the Renaissance, and Professorial Fellow (Garlick Fellow) of Balliol College at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on many areas of Renaissance art, including metalwork, prints and drawings, iconography and heraldry, and is above all a leading scholar of Renaissance ceramics, particularly Italian maiolica.
