UNEXPECTED MOTIFS in Renaissance

The Cabinet of Curiosities

You are looking at a gallery of bizarre images and unexpected motifs from real and imaginary life that displays, by means of twisted reality, the real spirit, mind and body of the Renaissance man, who is split between medieval superstition and the birth of a new Subject.

Many of these motifs were much less unusual for the Renaissance man than they appear to us today. In that time, people perceived the world in quite a different way than we do; in fact this was a short period of freedom when mind and body were equal and curiosity overpowered fear.

This cabinet of curiosities contains everything, from imaginary compositions to unusual erotic images, Madonna breast feeding the saint, a fantasy creature with fish-head and chicken feet, unusual landscapes in the shape of a human head, double images, illusionistic monsters, people with animal physiognomy, and scenes of everyday’s life like some quack removing a ‘stone of madness’ from someone’s head or a bearded woman breastfeeding…


	Leda and the Swan After Michelangelo 1530, after Oil on canvas, 105.4 x 141 cm London, National Gallery of Art


	Reclining Nymph Lucas Cranach the Elder 1530-1534 Fresco Madrid, Museo Thyssen Bornemisza


	Leda with the Swan Correggio 1531-1532 Oil on canvas, 152 x 191 cm Berlin, Staatliche Museen


	Ambassadors Hans Holbein the Younger 1533 Oil on panel, 207 x 209.5 cm London, National Gallery


	Round bowl Anonymous 1536 Faience, diameter 23 cm Private collection


	Last Judgment Michelangelo 1536-1541 Fresco Vatican city, Sistine chapel


	Allegory of Lust Agnolo Bronzino 1540-1550 Oil on panel, 146.5 x 116.8 cm London, National Gallery


	Portrait of Edward VI William Scrots 1546 Oil on panel, 42.5 x 160 cm London, National Portrait Gallery


	Temptation of St Anthony Pieter Huys 1547 Oil on panel, 69.5 cm x 102.5 cm Paris, Musee du Louvre


	Diane de Poitiers Master of the Fontainebleau School about 1550 Tempera on panel, 115 x 98,5 cm Basle, Offentliche Kunstsammlung


	Gregor Baci Unknown German painter about 1550 Oil on canvas, 39 x 31 cm Vienna, Kunsthistorische Museum, Ambras Art Collection


	Surgeon Jan Sanders van Hemessen 1550 Oil on panel, 100 x 141 cm Madrid, Museo del Prado


	Crucifixion Lucas Cranach the Elder 1552-1555 Tempera on panel Weimar, St Peter and Paul


	Dulle Griet Pieter Bruegel, the Elder 1562 Oil on panel, 161 x 115 cm Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh


	Allegory of Happiness Agnolo Bronzino 1564 Oil on copper, 40 x 30 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi


	Cook Giuseppe Arcimboldo about 1570 Oil on panel, 52.2 x 41 cm Stockholm, Private collection


	Petrus Gonsalvus Lavinia Fontana de Zappis about 1585 Oil on canvas Vienna, Kunsthistorische museum, Ambras Art Collection (or Innsbruck, Castelo de Ambras)


	Vegetable Gardener Giuseppe Arcimboldo about 1590 Oil on panel, 35 x 24 cm Cremona, Museo Civico ala Ponzone


	Woman at a Toilette Master of the Fontainebleau School about 1590 Oil on panel, 105 x 76 cm Basle, Offentliche Kunstsammlung


	Monk with a Nun Cornelis van Haarlem 1591 Oil on panel, 116 x 103 cm Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum

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