This is a brief history of and investigation into the collecting of sacred art. When works of art created for religious purposes outlive their original function, they often take on new meanings as they move from sacred spaces to secular collections. Focusing on the centuries in which the phenomenon of collecting came powerfully into its own, the fourteen essays presented here analyze the radical recontextualization of celebrated paintings by Raphael, Caravaggio, and Rubens; brings to light a lost holy tower from fifteenth-century Bavaria; and offers new insights into the meaning of 'sacred' and 'profane'. Collecting represents the primary mechanism by which a sacred work of art survives when it is alienated from its original context. In the field of art history, the consequences of such collecting - its tendency to reframe an object, metaphorically and physically - have only begun to be investigated. "Sacred Possessions" charts the contours of a fertile terrain for further inquiry.

This is a fascinating re-examination of the importance and legacy of provenance in the history of art. This book goes beyond the narrow definition of the term provenance, which addresses only the bare facts of ownership and transfer, to explore ideas about the origins and itineraries of objects, consider the historical uses of provenance research, and draw attention to the transformative power of ownership. The result is a volume of essays that makes a strong case for recuperating provenance - what contributing author Anne Higonnet calls "so many epic tales compressed into such dry lists" - for the history of art. Provenance attends to the social life of art, a work's biography subsequent to the moment of its origin. "Provenance" offers a broad perspective, ranging from ancient archaeology to conceptual art, that encompasses Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and considers a variety of media. The essays demonstrate in myriad ways how an owner's relationship with a work of art or, in varying degrees, with the object's previous owners can change irrevocably the way the work will be perceived and understood by future generations.

This ambitious work lifts the veil on a pivotal chapter in the history of art and its social meaning. This book explores the principles of the display of art in the magnificent Roman palaces of the early modern period, focusing attention on how the parts function to convey multiple artistic, social, and political messages, all within an environment that provided a model for aristocratic residences throughout Europe. Many of the objects exhibited in museums today once graced the interior of a Roman Baroque palazzo or a setting inspired by one. In fact, the very convention of a paintings gallery - the mainstay of museums - traces its ancestry to prototypes in the palaces of Rome. Inside Roman palaces, the display of art was calibrated to an increasingly accentuated dynamism of social and official life, activated by the moving bodies and the attention of residents and visitors. Display unfolded in space in a purposeful narrative that reflected rank, honor, privilege, and intimacy. With a contextual approach that encompasses the full range of media, from textiles to stucco, this study traces the influential emerging concept of a unified interior.It argues that art history - even the emergence of the modern category of fine art - was worked out as much in the rooms of palaces as in the printed pages of Vasari and other early writers on art.

This is a brief history of and investigation into the collecting of sacred art. When works of art created for religious purposes outlive their original function, they often take on new meanings as they move from sacred spaces to secular collections. Focusing on the centuries in which the phenomenon of collecting came powerfully into its own, the fourteen essays presented here analyze the radical recontextualization of celebrated paintings by Raphael, Caravaggio, and Rubens; brings to light a lost holy tower from fifteenth-century Bavaria; and offers new insights into the meaning of 'sacred' and 'profane'. Collecting represents the primary mechanism by which a sacred work of art survives when it is alienated from its original context. In the field of art history, the consequences of such collecting - its tendency to reframe an object, metaphorically and physically - have only begun to be investigated. "Sacred Possessions" charts the contours of a fertile terrain for further inquiry.

This is a fascinating re-examination of the importance and legacy of provenance in the history of art. This book goes beyond the narrow definition of the term provenance, which addresses only the bare facts of ownership and transfer, to explore ideas about the origins and itineraries of objects, consider the historical uses of provenance research, and draw attention to the transformative power of ownership. The result is a volume of essays that makes a strong case for recuperating provenance - what contributing author Anne Higonnet calls "so many epic tales compressed into such dry lists" - for the history of art. Provenance attends to the social life of art, a work's biography subsequent to the moment of its origin. "Provenance" offers a broad perspective, ranging from ancient archaeology to conceptual art, that encompasses Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and considers a variety of media. The essays demonstrate in myriad ways how an owner's relationship with a work of art or, in varying degrees, with the object's previous owners can change irrevocably the way the work will be perceived and understood by future generations.

This ambitious work lifts the veil on a pivotal chapter in the history of art and its social meaning. This book explores the principles of the display of art in the magnificent Roman palaces of the early modern period, focusing attention on how the parts function to convey multiple artistic, social, and political messages, all within an environment that provided a model for aristocratic residences throughout Europe. Many of the objects exhibited in museums today once graced the interior of a Roman Baroque palazzo or a setting inspired by one. In fact, the very convention of a paintings gallery - the mainstay of museums - traces its ancestry to prototypes in the palaces of Rome. Inside Roman palaces, the display of art was calibrated to an increasingly accentuated dynamism of social and official life, activated by the moving bodies and the attention of residents and visitors. Display unfolded in space in a purposeful narrative that reflected rank, honor, privilege, and intimacy. With a contextual approach that encompasses the full range of media, from textiles to stucco, this study traces the influential emerging concept of a unified interior.It argues that art history - even the emergence of the modern category of fine art - was worked out as much in the rooms of palaces as in the printed pages of Vasari and other early writers on art.