Lorenzo Lotto (Italian, ca. 1480-1556), Giovanni della Volta with his Wife and Children, Venice, 1547. Signed L. Lotto, Oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London, Bequeathed by Miss Sarry Solly, 1879

NEW YORK.- With nearly 200 works of art from more than 60 public and private collections around the world, Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797 is the first major exhibition to explore one of the most important and distinctive facets of Venetian art history: the exchange of art objects and interchange of artistic ideas between the great Italian maritime city and her Islamic neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean. Glass, textiles, carpets, arms and armor, ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, furniture, paintings, drawings, prints, printed books, book bindings, and manuscripts tell the fascinating story of the Islamic contribution to the arts of Venice during her heyday, from the medieval to the Baroque eras. 828, the year two Venetian merchants stole Saint Mark’s hallowed body from Muslim-controlled Alexandria and brought it to their native city, and 1797, when the Venetian Republic fell to the French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, form the chronological parameters of the exhibition that opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 27, 2007. Lire la suite http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=19584

Légende de la petite photo: Giovanni Mansueti (Italian, 1484-1526), St. Mark Baptizes Anianus (detail), Venice, ca. 1518, Oil on canvas, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan