Filippino Lippi and Rome
- Special Exhibition
Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery
Featured Art
About The Exhibition
After training with his father—the luminary artist Filippo Lippi—Filippino Lippi apprenticed and collaborated with Sandro Botticelli, in whose workshop he developed his own style. Filippino found great success as an independent painter in late Quattrocento Florence and won the favor of patrician families as well as the patronage of Lorenzo “The Magnificent” de’ Medici, the city’s de facto ruler. Upon Lorenzo’s recommendation, Neapolitan cardinal Oliviero Carafa engaged Filippino to decorate his sizable chapel in Rome’s Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. The resulting frescoes, painted between 1488 and 1493, are among the most celebrated of the Renaissance. Filippino found new inspiration in the Eternal City; the painter’s designs for the Carafa Chapel demonstrate a shift in both his style and iconography. After returning to Florence, Filippino continued to incorporate his Roman innovations in his paintings for the remainder of his life.
Filippino Lippi and Rome reconsiders the impact of the painter’s time in the Eternal City, juxtaposing Filippino’s Roman artworks with their Florentine precursors and successors. The exhibition places 20 paintings, drawings, and antiquities in direct conversation. For the first time, these related artworks are brought together, and numerous paintings are reunited with their studies. Each object has been carefully selected to elucidate the evolution of Filippino’s artistic practice before, during, and after his Roman period. The Cleveland Museum of Art’s seminal tondo by Filippino, The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Margaret, is the focal point of the exhibition. Commissioned by Carafa while Filippino was frescoing the cardinal’s chapel, this important painting is the only known independent work produced by the artist in Rome. Filippino Lippi and Rome traces the arc of Filippino’s career across time and media, constituting a unique opportunity for scholars and the public alike to discover the artistic processes and iconographic ingenuities of a preeminent Renaissance painter.
Sponsors
Principal support is provided by the Malcolm E. Kenney Curatorial Research Fund. Major support is provided by the Robert Lehman Foundation.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson. Major annual support is provided by the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm and the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment. Generous annual support is provided by two anonymous donors, Gini and Randy Barbato, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Gail and Bill Calfee, Dr. William A. Chilcote Jr. and Dr. Barbara S. Kaplan, Joseph and Susan Corsaro, Ron and Cheryl Davis, Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, Florence Kahane Goodman, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Robin Heiser, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., the estate of Walter and Jean Kalberer, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, the William S. Lipscomb Fund, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Sarah Nash, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, Dr. Nicholas and Anne Ogan, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, the Pickering Foundation, Christine Fae Powell, Peter and Julie Raskind, Michael and Cindy Resch, William Roj and Mary Lynn Durham, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, Saundra K. Stemen, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.