“This fall, The Frick Collection presents the first ever exhibition to focus on Siena as a center of artistic excellence and technical innovation in bronze sculpture during the Italian Renaissance. Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450 –1500 brings together nearly forty works —including statues, reliefs, candelabra, medals, and more—by some of the most influential sculptors in this period, among them Donatello, Vecchietta , and Francesco di Giorgio. Owing to their size and importance, many of these objects have never been shown outside of Tuscany, let alone in the United States.

Building on popular past presentations of bronze sculpture at the Frick, the exhibition invites visitors to appreciate the medium’s extraordinary beauty and versatility while discovering the technical ingenuity, collaboration, and political ambition behind Sienese bronzework.” — The Frick Collection

Commented Dalvit, “Between 1450 and 1500, almost nowhere in Italy did local artistic traditions rely so heavily on a single medium as Siena’s did on bronze. Yet, the Tuscan city has been celebrated chiefly for its paintings—as demonstrated by the landmark exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350, presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery, London, in 2024–25. Now, we are excited to bring long-overdue attention to Sienese bronze sculpture, exploring both the medium’s and the city’s underappreciated importance in Renaissance art history. Uniting some forty masterworks for the first time in one location, this exhibition highlights the revelatory achievements of Sienese artists, which constitute nothing short of a golden age of bronze sculpture.”

Siena: The Art of Bronze is organized by Giulio Dalvit, the Frick’s Associate Curator.

Title image: Attributed to Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501). Hercules Triumphing over Achelous (detail). Late 1480s (?). Copper alloy. 17 5/8 × 11 3/4 in. (44.8 × 29.8 cm). The Frick Collection, New York

Images courtesy The Frick Collection.