Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Royalty on Paper
Images of royalty in all their splendor, designed to convey the power, majesty, and accomplishments of European monarchs and their courts from the 16th century to 1900, are presented in Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Royalty on Paper at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
On view through June 16, 2013, the exhibition highlights some 35 prints and drawings from the Museum’s collection, with select loans from private collectors. Among the works on display is Albrecht Dürer’s monumental Triumphal Chariot of the Emperor Maximilian (1522), printed on eight large sheets of paper and joined together for the first time at the MFA. Other artists represented include Goya, Jacques Louis David, and Honoré Daumier.
The exhibition explores the varied ways in which European monarchs and aristocrats were represented by court artists and those outside of these rarified circles in works that served as propaganda, commemorated an historical event, or even poked fun at perceived excesses or ineptitude.
Highlights include multiple images by various artists of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Louis XIV, and Queen Victoria, as well as select images of Henri II and Marie Antoinette of France and Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I of England, and others of noble birth. In these regal portraits and depictions of lavish court entertainments, the artists captured a world of unbridled privilege that only the royals and their attendants could enjoy.
To enhance the appreciation of exhibit, the New England Historic Genealogical Society has produced a detailed family tree tracing Maximilian I’s relationships by birth and marriage to the royal houses of Europe, available on its website.
Illustration: A portion of Albrecht Dürer’s monumental Triumphal Chariot of the Emperor Maximilian (1522). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Pages: 1 · 2
More Articles
- Magazines and the American Experience: Highlights from the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D
- From the Office of the Historian: Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk: The 1954 Shooting Onto the House of Representatives
- Jo Freeman Reviews Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers: Lives in the Law by Jill Norgren
- Jill Norgren Writes: My Choices of Good Reads For The Past Year
- Explore the Royal Collection and an Exhibition, Masterpieces From Buckingham Palace
- Jo Freeman: Five Days in DC Where the Post-election Protests Were Puny but the Politics Were Not
- Jill Norgren Writes: Did Women in the US Campaign for Elective Office Fully Invested in the Prospect of Winning? “I cannot vote, but I can be voted for”
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Partial Remarks at the University of Buffalo, August 26, 2019: "If I am notorious, it is because I had the good fortune to be alive and a lawyer in the late 1960s"
- The Autobiography of a Garden at The Huntington, a Joy for Viewers and Gardeners
- Celebrating 100 Years of Women Voting; Virtual Sessions: United States Capitol Historical Society