Painted Love: Renaissance Marriage Portraits

Alesso Baldovinetti, Portrait of a Lady, ca. 1465, The National Gallery, London. © The National Gallery, London

Painted Love: Renaissance Marriage Portraits explores the role of portraiture in the process of marriage in Renaissance Europe. Marriage portraits not only documented the legal union of spouses, capturing that key moment in the sitters’ lives, intimate and personal as well as public and formal, but also celebrated the union of families, their wealth, power and land, and the forging of political alliances. In this way, they reflect the complex politics of fifteenth and sixteenth century Europe. Wedlock was often the culmination of years of negotiations, with portraits of eligible women and men being in demand and circulated from an early age. The show also considers the combination between idealism and realism in one likeness. In addition to paintings, the exhibition includes objects associated with the rituals of marriage: love tokens, rings, gifts, and commemorative tableware.