Little Missenden Festival 2008

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Event 4 2008

Faces of Renaissance children

Catherine Reynolds

Saturday October 11th,  5.00pm

Little Missenden village hall

Tickets adults £6, unreserved

What parents do not want pictures of their children? A portrait of the infant son of Charles VIII of France was seized by Italian troops with the French royal baggage train at the battle of Fornovo in 1495. Portraits of royal children could also serve a public purpose as statements of dynastic continuity and the stability of the state; abroad, they could help in negotiating the marriage alliances that underpinned much international diplomacy. The ties of kinship and the desire for posterity were not restricted to royalty. Few children had the genius of Albrecht Dürer, who drew his own portrait at the age of 13, but many were portrayed by artists of genius.

The lecture will present some of these works as a prelude to the National Gallery exhibition Renaissance Faces (15 October 2008-18 January 2009), where children by Ghirlandaio, Gossaert, Cranach and Clouet are expected to hang beside their elders, while others by van der Weyden, Memling, Lotto and Titian can be seen in the permanent collection. 

Catherine Reynolds is a Visiting Fellow of Reading University and a Consultant for Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Christie's.  She has a special interest in northern European painting and manuscript illumination of the 14th-16th centuries, and lectures for the V&A and others.  Recent publications have been concerned with Netherlandish landscape painting, aspects of French manuscript illumination and the understanding of art in 15th-century England.  

Link to National Gallery Renaissance faces exhibition

Little Missenden Festival 2008