European Art Archives

Left: Martin Droeshout, Portrait of William Shakespeare, 1623. Right: Titian, Tarquinius and Lucretia, ca. 1571, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.

Literature

The Art of Ekphrasis: Shakespeare’s Lucrece

It is most common to talk about paintings or sculptures inspired by a piece of literature. Yet, this relationship between arts is not unidirectional.

Jimena Escoto 23 April 2024

Herstory

Margaret of Austria: The Public Image of a Renaissance Stateswoman

Instagram and other social media have long since taken over our inherent need to be seen and acknowledged by our surroundings. But this deliberate...

Kero Fichter 22 April 2024

Renaissance

Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries

While today, tapestries are seemingly minor works of art, during the Renaissance, nothing was declared more spectacular than a set of tapestries...

Anna Ingram 22 April 2024

Photograph of the Montserrat Monastery (a building in the mountain cliffs).

Museum Stories

10 Must-See Paintings at the Museum of Montserrat in Barcelona

The six permanent collections at the Museum of Montserrat near Barcelona house over 1,300 art and archeological objects. From an ancient Egyptian...

Nikolina Konjevod 22 April 2024

Pieter van Aelst, Christ's Charge to Peter, from the Acts of the Apostles

Renaissance

Renaissance Tapestries 101: Religious, Political, and Magical

Renaissance tapestries are the most underestimated subject in art history. As expensive and enormously large works of art, tapestries attributed to...

Anna Ingram 22 April 2024

Theater & Cinema

The Serpent Queen: Renaissance Tapestries in Modern TV Series

The Serpent Queen, a show produced by Starz, tells the story of Catherine de Medici’s life and reign in 16th-century France. In the first...

Anna Ingram 22 April 2024

Theater & Cinema

Harry Potter and the Lady of the Unicorn Tapestries

The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries were made towards the end of the 15th century and are one of the most well-known sets of medieval tapestries. You...

Anna Ingram 22 April 2024