An exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is bringing renewed attention to the artistic legacy of the Della Robbia family, prominent Renaissance sculptors known for their distinctive glazed ceramic works. Spanning three generations, the workshop founded by Luca della Robbia in the 1440s revolutionized the use of brightly colored ceramics, an innovation that left a lasting mark on Florentine architecture and art.
Luca della Robbia developed a technique that involved glazing ceramics in vivid colors—most notably whites, blues, and greens—creating durable reliefs that maintained their vibrancy over centuries. This approach contrasted sharply with other contemporary materials such as marble and bronze, which tended to lose detail or fade when viewed from a distance. The Della Robbia ceramics, often installed on church facades or set within private homes, combined durability with visual clarity, allowing religious iconography like the Madonna and Child to be easily recognized by worshippers from afar.
The family’s workshop was carried forward by Luca’s nephew Andrea and later by Andrea’s son Giovanni, extending the ceramic tradition well into the 16th century. Their creations were produced in multiples, making religious art more accessible to a wider clientele who sought modest objects for personal devotion. These works held particular resonance in Renaissance Florence, where high mortality rates among mothers and infants imbued images like the serene Virgin and Child with profound emotional and spiritual significance.
The Della Robbia workshop’s colorful ceramics revived a classical tradition noted by Pliny the Elder, who recorded that ancient Roman sculptures were originally painted. Their work, therefore, was not only innovative but also a deliberate nod to antiquity. Giorgio Vasari, the 16th-century historian of art, praised Luca della Robbia for inventing a colored medium more enduring than those used by the ancients.
Despite their historical importance, Della Robbia ceramics fell out of favor in the 20th century. By the late 1960s, the Met had amassed several dozen pieces, with plans for a dedicated gallery that never materialized. Shifting tastes in art criticism, particularly the modernist emphasis on medium specificity and conceptual depth, relegated the ceramics to obscurity. Their vibrant colors were often dismissed as garish or too commercial, seen as bridging sculpture and painting without fully belonging to either.
Recent curatorial efforts, including those by Met curator Denise Allen and guest curator Federica Carta, have sought to re-examine and restore these works, some of which had languished in storage and suffered neglect. The renewed exhibition encourages viewers to appreciate the Della Robbia pieces through the lens of their original historical and cultural context, highlighting their technical achievement, accessibility, and enduring spiritual significance.