Alessandro Vitale, Italian, 1535-1612, Federico, Prince of Urbino, at the Age of Two Years, 1607
Oil on canvas, 36 3/8 x 25 in. (92.4 x 63.5 cm)
Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Robert H. Tannahill, 44.216

Pursuits and Pleasures: Baroque Paintings from the Detroit Institute of Arts is the largest loan ever of European Old Master paintings to travel the state of Michigan from the collections of the DIA. It features 35 outstanding examples of Dutch, Flemish, French, Italian and British paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries. Included are paintings by many of the period’s most noted artists.

Approaches to landscapes are seen in works by Aelbert Cuyp, Claude Lorrain, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Richard Wilson. Portraits, including self-portraits, by Salvator Rosa, Rembrandt’s studio, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, and Alessandro Vitale, show the variety of ways in which people projected their self-images. Genre paintings range from the games people played (Jan Steen), the music they made (Michiel van Musscher, Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo), and the way they lived (Gerard TerBorch, Pieter de Hooch). New subject matter is represented in still life and architectural paintings with large-scale examples by Frans Snyder and Giovanni Paolo Pannini. The exhibition covers approximately 1600 through 1750, explores baroque themes and concerns of emotion and drama, the relationship of man and nature, and dynamism and exuberance. The paintings are illustrative of why this period was known as the golden age of painting.

This exhibition was curated by Dr. Susan J. Bandes, Kresge Art Museum director. It was organized by the Kresge Art Museum, the Dennos Museum Center, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and the Muskegon Museum of Art in cooperation with the Detroit Institute of Arts and is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, the Michigan Humanities Council, Marshall Fields, and the
Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, with additional funding provided by
Fifth Third Bank. Sponsored locally by the Michigan State University Federal Credit Union.

An 48 page exhibition catalogue written by Dr. Bandes is available for purchase in the museum store or online.

An audio tour of the exhibition is also available for children and adults.