Stories of art Module 2 : Renaissance painting 1500-1600

Third session in a six week course at the National Gallery on Renaissance painting which focused this week on the role of women with the course tutor Sian Williams.

The first session looked at how women were women were depicted in art of the time either giving them a saint or sinner role. It looked at how both religious and secular art used these two themes. It then looked at women as commissioners of art talking a Crivelli on the gallery’s collection as an example. It was commissioned by Oradea Becchetti for her husbands funeral chapel.

The second session looked a women who were patrons of art of course looking in some detail at the wonderful Isabella D’Este and her studio. It also mention Eleanor of Toledo wife of Cosimo de Medici who paid for the Pitti Palace with her own money. Then we ended with women artists which was fascinating. I’d not realised that Tintoretto had a daughter who was an artist and that Van Eyck sister Margaret was a painter. We also learnt about Sofonisba Anguissola who was mentored by Michelangelo  and who went to work for Philip II in Spain.

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