Exhibition: “The Brilliance of Caravaggio: Four Paintings in Focus”
Dates: Jan. 20–April 14, 2024
Venue: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, USA
Gallery: Canaday Gallery
Admission: $10 per visitor; free for Toledo Museum of Art members
About the Exhibition: The focused show pairs four iconic paintings by the renowned Italian artist Caravaggio with four works in the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection by Italian, French, Dutch and Spanish artists who found inspiration in Caravaggio’s technique and subject matter. By bringing together European masterworks, the exhibition illuminates Caravaggio’s impact and introduces audiences to a dramatic aesthetic that has relevance today.
“The Brilliance of Caravaggio” is the first assembly of four Caravaggio paintings in the United States in more than a decade and marks just the second showing of the artist’s work at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Highlights:
The Caravaggio paintings featured in the exhibition will include a genre scene, an allegory and two paintings of Christian saints.
Though painted in the 1590s, his genre scenes and paintings of Christian saints closely align with modern-day human experiences with themes of threat, seduction, love, deceit and religion.
Visitors will have the rare opportunity to compare, in person, the masterful art of Caravaggio with the paintings of artists who sought to emulate his compelling realism.
A continuation of the Toledo Museum of Art’s commitment to present the full scope of world history, the exhibition highlights Caravaggio’s technique, style and subject matter and examines his wider influence across the art world, encouraging visitors to interpret the art on view in new ways.
The Caravaggio paintings include “The Cardsharps” (ca. 1595), one of Caravaggio’s earliest and most highly regarded endeavors, as well as “The Musicians” (1597), “Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy” (ca. 1595-96) and “Martha and Mary Magdalene” (ca. 1598).
The other paintings included are Valentin de Boulogne’s “Fortune Teller with Soldiers” (ca. 1620); Jusepe de Ribera’s “Portrait of a Musician” (1638); Hendrick ter Brugghen’s “The Supper at Emmaus” (1616); and Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Lot and his Daughters” (ca. 1636-1638).
Related Programs: For program details and registration links, please visit toledomuseum.org/calendar.
Organizers and Lending Institutions: “The Brilliance of Caravaggio: Four Paintings in Focus” is organized by Lawrence W. Nichols, curator emeritus, Toledo Museum of Art. The Caravaggio paintings on view are on loan from the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, Texas), the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Hartford, Connecticut), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit).