The Metropolitan Museum of Art Shows Renaissance Master Perino del Vaga

Written by Klaus Beiderbecke Monday, 17 October 2011 23:34

New York City.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently showing "Perino del Vaga in New York Collections", on view through February 5th 2012. Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi, 1501-1547), a pupil of Raphael, was a leading innovator of the late Renaissance style known as Mannerism, and one of the most influential Italian artists of the 16th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently acquired a painting and a drawing by the master, and they are both featured in Perino del Vaga in New York Collections, on view from September 27, 2011, through February 5, 2012.  The new acquisitions are seen alongside some 18 drawings by the artist from the Metropolitan Museum, the Morgan Library & Museum, and private collections, as well as a second painting from a New York private collection.

Perino del Vaga in New York Collections represents every phase of the Florentine-born artist’s career, from his first decade in Rome, when he emerged as the preeminent fresco painter in the city in the wake of Raphael’s death in 1520; to his years in Genoa as court artist to Andrea Doria; to his final decade in Rome, when he worked primarily in the service of Pope Paul III Farnese, designing frescoes, stucco, silver and other precious objects, and embroideries. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the "Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist", a recently discovered masterpiece that dates from Perino’s early years in Rome (ca. 1525) and is an exceedingly rare example of his activity as a panel painter.  Fewer than 10 independent paintings by Perino survive, so the recent appearance of this previously unknown work is nothing short of extraordinary.  The painting has been newly restored, revealing the original colors and giving insight into the artist’s painting technique. It is featured with the Metropolitan Museum’s other recent acquisition by the artist, which is an outstanding, highly finished drawing of Jupiter and Juno reclining on a marriage bed.  A study for an important lost tapestry commissioned in the early 1530s by Admiral Andrea Doria, commander of the papal and later the Imperial fleet and ruler of Genoa, this brilliant sheet is one of the artist’s most celebrated drawings and a consummate demonstration of his renowned gifts as a draftsman.

Blending influences from Michelangelo, Raphael, and classical antiquity, Perino’s art, with its emphasis on grace, artifice, and effortless complexity, epitomizes Mannerism.  Florentine by birth, Perino trained with Raphael in Rome and went on to become the preeminent fresco painter in that city.  Following the Sack of Rome in 1527, he relocated to Genoa, where he worked for nearly a decade as court artist to Admiral-Prince Andrea Doria.  His decorations in the Palazzo Doria introduced to Genoa the modern maniera all’antica, as the sophisticated, classicizing style of Raphael and his followers was known. By 1537 Perino was back in Rome, which was undergoing a period of cultural renewal, and within a few years he had become court artist to Pope Paul III, assuming the role that Raphael had filled decades earlier for Pope Leo X.  Like Raphael, Perino oversaw a large and industrious workshop, devising monumental compositions for the Vatican and elsewhere, while entrusting to his collaborators much of the execution of his frescoes and stucco reliefs, as well as the rock crystals, embroideries, medals, and myriad other precious objects he designed. Perino died in 1547 and was entombed in the Pantheon near Raphael.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (colloquially The Met) is an art museum on the eastern edge of Central Park, along "Museum Mile" in New York City, United States. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, often called "the Met", is one of the world's largest art galleries; there is also a much smaller second location, at "The Cloisters", in Upper Manhattan, which features medieval art. Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. It opened on February 20, 1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue. Today, the Met measures almost 1/4-mile (400 m) long and occupies more than 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2). The Met's permanent collection is cared for and exhibited by seventeen separate curatorial departments, each with a specialized staff of curators and scholars, as well as four dedicated conservation departments and a department of scientific research.


Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art. After negotiations with the City of New York in 1871, the Met was granted the land between the East Park Drive, Fifth Avenue, and the 79th and 85th Street Transverse Roads in Central Park. A red-brick and stone "mausoleum" was designed by American architect Calvert Vaux and his collaborator Jacob Wrey Mould. Vaux's ambitious building was not well-received; the building's High Victorian Gothic style being already dated prior to completion, and the president of the Met termed the project "a mistake." Within 20 years, a new architectural plan engulfing the Vaux building was already being executed. Since that time, many additions have been made including the distinctive Beaux-Arts Fifth Avenue facade, Great Hall, and Grand Stairway. These were designed by architect and Met trustee Richard Morris Hunt, but completed by his son, Richard Howland Hunt in 1902 after his father's death. The wings that completed the Fifth Avenue facade in the 1910s were designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The modernistic sides and rear of the museum were the work of Roche, Dinkeloo, and Associates in the 1970s and 1980s. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.metmuseum.org/

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