Tempera on panel, 45.3 x 29.8 cm, Egham, Royal Holloway, University of London
Pre-Raphaelites: Modern Renaissance
San Domenico Museum
Piazza Guido Da Montefeltro
Forlì, Italy
24 February – 30 June 2024
Discoveries abound in Italy’s first exhibition to comprehensively examine the British Pre-Raphaelites’ legacy in relation to their Italian Renaissance forerunners. Unprecedented in scope, depth, theme, and presentation, famous works by Italian masters including Cimabue, Botticelli, Bellini, and Michelangelo are presented in concert with acclaimed paintings by Pre-Raphaelites including founding members John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, among others.
While widely known as a brotherhood of young nonconformist painters whose dramatic depictions of women challenged traditional Victorian standards of beauty, the important and often overlooked contributions made by accomplished British female artists to the Pre-Raphaelite movement warrants further study.
Addressing this imbalance and answering Hamlet’s fabled call to "Get thee to a nunnery,” paintings and works on paper by Evelyn De Morgan, Elizabeth Siddal, Julia Margaret Cameron, Marie Spartali Stillman, Christiana Jane Herringham, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, and Phoebe Anna Traquair are among the 360 tour-de-force works currently on display through June 30 in Forlì’s former 13th- century convent.
Here’s a link to the exhibition press release: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lTwVh76drCQGuuw2mmfGZpv8Ef9I3sMv/view?usp=sharing
Many thanks for your consideration, and Cecilia Bonn (Bonncecilia@gmail.com, +001 212-734-9754) would be happy to arrange interviews with co-curators Peter Trippi and Elizabeth Prettejohn as well as to provide you with their catalogue essays in English.