The National Gallery of London is set to showcase the Italian Renaissance with the ‘Michelangelo and Sebastiano’ exhibition.
Sebastiano del Piombo, The Visitation, 1518-1519, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des
Peintures (Inv. 357) © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski
Having met in Rome in 1511, as Michelangelo was finishing his decoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Sebastiano del Piombo and he became friends and began collaborating artistically. Their meeting sparked a remarkable 25-year friendship and partnership, yielding outstanding works of art that neither could have created without the other. They carried out their work against a backdrop of war and religious conflict, but also during a time of great intellectual energy and artistic innovation.
Central to the exhibition are two of their collaborations: the Pietà for S. Francesco in Viterbo (c.1512–16) and The Raising of Lazarus, painted for Narbonne Cathedral in France, and one of the foundational works in the National Gallery Collection.
The exhibition also features the exceptional loan of Michelangelo’s The Risen Christ (1514–15) from the Church of S. Vincenzo Martire in Bassano Romano and a cutting-edge recreation of the Borgherini Chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome, decorated by Sebastiano to partial designs by Michelangelo.
Comprising paintings, drawings, sculpture and letters documenting correspondence between the artists, this groundbreaking exhibition presents works of striking force and originality.
From March 15 to June 25, the exhibition is sponsored by Credit Suisse. For more information, see the National Gallery website.