Portrait of Messer Marsilio Cassotti and His Wife, Faustina, 1523, oil on canvas, 28 x 33 1/8 in. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Selected Works

From Cassone to Poesia:
Paintings of Love and Marriage

In this section, the focus will shift to nuptial portraits and paintings on themes of love that decorated bedchambers and private quarters. Highly important and intriguing works by such painters as Fra Filippo Lippi, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Lorenzo Lotto will be on display, including double portraits commemorating marriages, as well as rare portraits of babies, fathers with their children, and widows.

Decorating the camera (bedroom) of a new husband and wife was of enormous importance, and the families would spend huge sums on cassoni and panel paintings called spalliere, which were installed about shoulder height as part of the wainscoting. Virtuous women from ancient history or the Old Testament, whose stories were depicted on cassoni panels, were also the subjects of paintings that decorated the walls of nuptial chambers, serving as models of morality for the newlyweds.