Sleeper of the Summer
Hidden Faces - Covered Portraits of the Renaissance
Headed to the Met Museum to see the blockbuster Sleeping Beauties exhibit? Daunted by the ticket reservations, long queues and hoards of selfie takers? You’re in luck! There’s a really great Renaissance Portrait exhibit in the Lehman Wing that’s virtually empty. Hidden Faces - Covered Portraits of the Renaissance is sure to be the artworld’s sleeper of the summer. In this digital age, where everyone is armed with a camera, and our own images are omnipresent, it’s hard to imagine a time when a person’s portrait was rare, cherished and valuable. Portraiture was once exclusive to the extremely wealthy.
This exhibit is the first to examine an intriguing but largely unknown side—in the literal sense—of Renaissance painting: multi-sided portraits in which the sitter’s likeness was concealed by a hinged or sliding cover, within a box, or by a dual-faced format. The covers and reverses of these small, private portraits were adorned with puzzlelike emblems, epigrams, allegories, and mythologies that celebrated the sitter’s character, and they represent some of the most inventive and unique secular imagery of the Renaissance. The viewer had to decode the meaning of the symbolic portrait before lifting, sliding, or turning the image over to unmask the face below.
- From the Met Museum exhibit notes.
This nearly forgotten tradition was widespread in Italy and Northern Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. There are approximately 60 double-sided and covered portraits from The Met collection and other American and European institutions. Many of the smaller portraits by Hans Holbein, Hans Memling, Lucas Cranach, Lorenzo Lotto, and Titian, were intended as portable propaganda or designed to conceal a lover's identity.
- From the Met Museum exhibit notes.
These three-dimensional, hand-held delights are the equivalent of photos on your iphone’s camera roll. They remind us of the once intimate and personal nature of portraits, designed as interactive objects from a simpler and yet somehow more sophisticated age. There’s also some great examples of coins, one of the first forms of portraiture.
“The Met’s delightful show “Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance” illuminates a curious trend in 15th- and 16th-century painting: the slow reveal.” - The New York Times
The curatorial effort was...akin to a detective story, and as viewers we are able to enjoy the great reveal at the end. - The Wall Street
Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance is on view at The Met Museum through July 7th. Don’t miss it.