In Love with Laura: A secret in marble

Francesco Laurana, Female Bust, Ideal Portrait of Laura (?), ca. 1490 (?), marble, partly painted wax, Kunst Historisches Museum, Vienna.

At the center of In Love with Laura: A Secret in Marble is a major work of European sculpture: Francesco Laurana's (around 1430–1502) Female Bust in the Kunstkammer Vienna. It is one of the few coloured marble busts of the Renaissance; the work is one of the most important creations of portrait sculpture of the 15th century. The extraordinary importance of this object, which has been forgotten over the past few decades, is to be brought back into public awareness in this small but top-class special exhibition. The exhibition will for the first time illustrate the thesis formulated some time ago that it could be a portrait of the enigmatic Laura, idolized but unhappily loved by the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch. Petrarch wrote over 300 touching love poems to Laura in the 14th century.

In addition to masterpieces from the Kunsthistorisches Museum such as Giorgione's painting Laura , international loans from the Frick Collection in New York and from the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence are presented in the exhibition.