PETA MOTTURE Revisiting Donatello Sculpting the Renaissance

MAP FORUM - 5 March 2024

Revisiting 'Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance'

The Donatello exhibition held at the V&A last year was the final iteration of a three-part celebration of the Renaissance sculptor, held in 2022-3 at Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. While benefitting from some shared loans, each venue created its own exhibition that was both unique and complementary to those of our partners. This talk will discuss the origins, aims and development of the London show, Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance. In doing so, it will highlight the collaborative nature of such exhibitions, together with the practical and other issues that are often faced, which - though not always evident - can have an impact on shaping the narrative, as well as how it is interpreted and presented.

Peta Motture was formerly Senior Curator of Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, responsible primarily for the Italian collection and focussing on the Renaissance, until her retirement in September 2022. She was also fortunate to lead the team responsible for developing the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, which opened in December 2009, after which she benefitted from various external fellowships in order to write The Culture of Bronze. Making and Meaning in Italian Renaissance Sculpture, published in 2019, which formed part of the Robert H. Smith Renaissance Sculpture Programme at the V&A. Her final project was the Donatello exhibition, which ran from February to June 2023, for which she continued as lead curator while an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the V&A Research Institute.