miniatures

A new blog series focusing on an item's ownership history.

The Life of a… series will focus on a particular item, the hands it has passed through and the eras it has survived. When viewed alone, it is easy to become caught up in a manuscript’s beauty, as well as its many intricacies, but it is worth remembering that all of the objects that survive from the Middle Ages and Renaissance have endured a great deal of history. 

This year, our exhibition at Frieze Masters has an unusual theme. Inspired by Alain de Botton’s and John Armstrong’s book Art as Therapy, the exhibition will include a thematic display that focuses on the emotions that the artworks convey, or on life lessons to be learned from the works. Loosely based on the ideas from the book and the teachings of The School of Life, some of the thematic cases will show artistic depictions of life skills, such as resilience, curiosity, and virtue.