European Art in the Columbia Museum of Art, Including the Samuel H. Kress Collection, vol. 1: The Thirteenth through the Sixteenth Century by Charles R. Mack (review)

REVIEWS 271 aissance art and the dearth of scholarship devoted the subject, this undertaking was well worth the risks involved. JAMES FISHBURNE, Art History, UCLA Charles R. Mack, European Art in the Columbia Museum of Art, Including the Samuel H. Kress Collection, vol. 1: The Thirteenth through the Sixteenth Century (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 2009) 304 pp., color and b&w ill. In 1989, Charles R. Mack, William Joseph Todd Professor of the Italian Renaissance and Louise Fry Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina, and a long-time associate of the Columbia Museum of Art (CMA, www.columbiamuseum.org), was commissioned by the museum to prepare the first comprehensive illustrated catalogue of its holdings of Renaissance and Baroque art. The impetus was the CMA’s planned relocation, achieved in 1998. Reallocation of resources to the construction of a new museum building delayed the project’s completion, but the result was worth the wait. With the support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Mack and the University of South Carolina Press have realized a beautifully produced and affordably priced catalogue that is much richer in content than initially planned. This first volume covers the Renaissance, ca. 1300 to 1600; a companion volume encompassing the Baroque and Rococo eras is planned. The core of the CMA’s collection of European art arrived between 1954 and 1974 in a series of gifts of paintings, sculptures, textiles, and furniture from the collection amassed by American entrepreneur Samuel H. Kress. Following a preface describing the history of the catalogue project, the volume fittingly offers a synthetic essay on the formation of the Kress Collection, its evolution from a private collection to a national resource, and the arrival of seventy-eight works of art at the CMA. While much of this material may be found in other sources, Mack has woven it into an engaging and effective narrative. A companion essay, detailing the history of the CMA, from the 1915 establishment of the Columbia Art Association and the museum’s 1950 public opening to the present, is projected for the second volume. The catalogue’s primary goal is to make the CMA’s collection accessible to a broad audience of students, specialists, and lay viewers. In this it succeeds admirably, not least because of the more than 100 high-quality illustrations, including color photographs (most occupying a full page) of every object detailed in the catalogue. A second introductory essay, directed toward non-specialist readers, charts a brief history of the Italian Renaissance through the works in the CMA’s collection. The essay successfully sketches out the cultural and artistic milieu of late medieval and Renaissance Italy and presents key art historical concepts, including stylistic sequences and regional inflections. Where it falls short is in a lack of supplemental images. While Mack convincingly builds his history using objects in the CMA, he inevitably references major artists and artworks not represented elsewhere in the catalogue. In these cases, comparative images would have been useful. In general, however, the book takes careful account of its readership. The catalogue proper begins with a three-page introduction that explains its chronological organization and the contents of each entry, and lists frequently REVIEWS 272 cited sources. Particularly useful in integrating academic and non-academic audiences is the explanation of common abbreviations placed at the start of the section. Also helpful is the brief but thoughtfully compiled glossary, which blends such technical terms as “gadrooning” and “crocket” with basic disciplinary vocabulary, including “ascribed” and “Trecento.” Collectively, these elements enhance the book’s accessibility. This accessibility does not come at the price of scholarly value. Of the eighty-two works described in this first volume, fifty-six are treated in extended entries that augment sophisticated discussion of the work proper with a biography of the artist, reports on the object’s condition and framing, exhibition history , and detailed bibliography. The entries were prepared by Mack and graduate research assistants from the University of South Carolina’s program in art history, two of whom now hold leadership positions at the CMA. Because Kress’s objective had been to establish a comprehensive collection that surveyed the breadth of Italian Renaissance...