Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.
The Frick Collection’s exhibition, Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500, offers a groundbreaking reassessment of Renaissance Tuscan art. While Siena has historically been celebrated primarily for its lush Gothic and early Renaissance panel paintings, this ambitious presentation shifts the spotlight to the city’s astonishing mastery of bronze casting.
The focus is not only the artistic excellence characteristic of Italian Renaissance art, but also technical innovation in bronze sculpture. Bringing together forty works – including statues, reliefs, medals, candelabra, and more, many traveling outside of Tuscany for the very first time – by masters such as Donatello, Vecchietta, and Francesco di Giorgio, this exhibition aims to distinguish Siena’s bronze as an important and reliable medium of choice and distinction.
As noted by the exhibition’s curator, Giulio Dalvit, the Renaissance has long been synonymous with Florence, but “forty miles south, Siena pursued its own artistic trajectory as an important pilgrimage stop on the Via Francigena, connecting Rome to France and England – which helped make the city a crossroads for artists, objects, and ideas.”
Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.
Siena may have fallen to Florentine dominance in the 1550s, but The Frick’s current exhibition restores its voice, revealing the bold possibilities and subtle demands of working in bronze. Beyond form, scale, texture, and polish, a bronze sculpture achieves true dimension through its uncarved voids and unresolved details. Bronze was a coveted yet precarious medium, frequently melted down for ordnance during times of conflict or necessity, making the surviving works a rarity.
The first section of this exhibition shows bronze as both decorative and utilitarian – from churches, households, and stables to battlefields and beyond. This initial section also draws attention to the bronze foundries, where engineers, architects, founders, goldsmiths, and sculptors shared expertise, experience, and materials to sometimes create a single object. An example is the bell cast in 1454 for the Santa Maria della Scala hospital complex, located outside Siena.
An ornate flagpole, a horse ring, and a gilded trefoil relief are on display, reminding us that objects can be functional while also being beautiful. In connection, books with drawings of bronze cannons for the Orsini family remind us that patronage was as important to artists in the fifteenth century as it is today.
Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.
A standout highlight for visitors is the middle gallery dedicated to Donatello’s complicated relationship with the city. Though anti-Florentine sentiment stymied new commissions during Donatello’s Sienese period (1457 to 1461), the presence of his masterful tomb slab for Bishop Giovanni Pecci, Bishop of Grosseto – making its U.S. debut – illuminates his profound illusionistic influence on Sienese masters such as Vecchietta and Francesco di Giorgio.
Like plaster, Francesco di Giorgio’s bronze reliefs feature granular, unrefined surfaces that were often left largely or selectively untooled after casting. This technique dissolves hard contours and creates a rich atmosphere. In fact, several of these reliefs were once attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), as they appear to anticipate his famous sfumato technique – the subtle softening of edges to create a smoky effect.
The final gallery serves as the exhibition’s triumphant crescendo, displaying a remarkable array of freestanding sculptures and intimate relief works that highlight Sienese expressive dynamism. Powerful pairings, such as Francesco di Giorgio’s dynamic figures of Hercules alongside the Frick’s own Resurrection of Christ by Vecchietta, underscore the unparalleled versatility of Sienese bronzeworkers.
By reuniting these fragile, precious survivals, the Frick delivers a captivating narrative of artistic ambition that permanently expands our understanding of the Italian Renaissance.
The exhibition’s strength lies in how artfully it traces the interplay between technical innovation, fierce regional rivalry, and civic identity.
Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.
The show and catalog are curated and authored by Giulio Dalvit, with contributions by an international group of scholars, and texts are complemented by photography of all Siena’s surviving fifteenth-century bronzes, coordinated by Victoria Schussler, Associate Conservator at the Frick.
Discover even more when you visit Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500, on view through January 18, 2027.
Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.
The Frick Collection Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500
October 15, 2026 – January 18, 2027
The Frick Collection
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