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March 30, 2006
Penelope Curtis, ed. Depth of Field: The Place of Relief in the Time of Donatello Leeds: Henry Moore Institute in association with Victoria and Albert Museum, 2005. 140 pp.; 45 color ills.; 18 b/w ills. Paper $62.95 (1900081393)

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, September 23, 2004–March 27, 2005

 
CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2006.34

Large
Agostino di Duccio. Virgin and Child with Five Angels. 1450–60. Marble. 55.9 x 47.9 x 3.7 cm. Image courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

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The recent exhibition, Depth of Field: The Place of Relief in the Time of Donatello, at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, focused on early fifteenth-century Italian relief sculptures from the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Organized by Peta Motture, Glyn Davies, and Stuart Frost at the museum and by Penelope Curtis, Martina Droth, and Stephen Feeke of the Henry Moore Institute, it was the first exhibition to focus on Italian early fifteenth-century relief sculpture, and it presented the subject in a provocative and innovative way. Its specific purposes were to explore how the sculptures might be reinstalled in the new galleries under design at the Victoria & Albert and to present them in a new light—literally and figuratively—by giving them the attention they deserve. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue of the same title featuring three short essays on the culture of relief in late medieval Tuscany by Davies, Donatello’s relief sculptures by Motture, and the history of collecting Italian Renaissance reliefs at the South Kensington Museum (V&A) by Droth, followed by succinct entries on all the objects in the show. The exhibition aimed to accomplish more than to focus on its masterpiece, Donatello’s marble relief...