A special installation will bring the Philadelphia Musem of Art’s important collection of medieval art and architectural spaces into dialogue with special works of art on loan from the Glencairn Museum. The Glencairn Museum, located in the eponymous 1930s home built by Raymond Pitcairn (1885-1966) in the town of Bryn Athyn, just north of Philadelphia, has a long history of generous loans to the museum’s medieval galleries and, during a renovation, will lend a group of exquisite medieval treasures from their holdings. The exhibit will be in Gallery 307 and open Saturday, June 11.
Among the loans are a celebrated stained-glass panel from the Abbey Church of St. Denis, showing the Flight into Egypt, one of the most important and best-preserved pieces of early gothic glass in America; a Head of a King attributed to Gislebertus, sculptor of the 12th century portal of the Cathedral of Saint Lazare at Autun, France; and exceptional architectural sculpture, such as a capital from St. Guilhem le Désert in southern France. Other treasures from the Glencairn Museum will include Spanish ivories from the migration and Romanesque periods and significant figurative stained-glass panels from the 13th century.
The unique display will create rich juxtapositions with works on view in neighboring galleries as well as add depth to discussions of the functions of medieval art, artistic processes and the links between artists working in different media (for example, manuscripts to sculpture in stone, ivory or metal) and exploration of narrative decoration in stained glass and on architectural sculpture, a particular strength of the Glencairn collection.
For additional information, visit www.philamuseum.org.