Antonio e Piero Pollaiolo. “Nell’argento e nell’oro, in pittura e nel bronzo…”
Gigetta Dalli Regoli
The exhibition held at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan (7 November 2014-19 February 2015) offered a significant overview of the different art techniques used by the brothers Antonio and Piero del Pollaiolo in their workshops, and showed how works of painting, sculpture, jewelry, drawing and applied arts attained the same level of excellence and dignity. As regards the paintings, the curators have chosen to attribute them, including most of those formerly attributed to Antonio or to a collaboration of the two brothers, solely to Piero, excluding any intervention by Antonio. Such a reduction of Antonio’s catalogue is questionable, as it appears also considering the famous four female portraits chosen for the exhibition cover image, as the Berlin and Milan panels look strikingly different, in their linearistic essence, from the remaining two.