Connecticut art lovers must see the 16th-century French urns in the first-floor gallery at Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven.
The lead-glazed earthenware duo are embellished to the nth degree: Each has two handles, two blond cherub-heads with blue wings and pink capes, strawberries, leaves, rosebuds, salamanders, fruit, against a nubbly surface that must be uncomfortable when picked up.
“At this time, nobody thought less is more. They thought more is more,” says Suzanne Boorsch, the curator of prints and drawings, who oversaw the student-curated show.
The salamander was the emblem of Francis I of France (1515-47), whose artistic patronage is the focus of “Le Gout du Prince: Art and Prestige in Sixteenth-Century France,” which is up until Aug. 28 at the 1111 Chapel St. museum. After the Italian Wars, Francis made château Fontainebleu his headquarters and played host to the finest contemporary artists, turning the château into an epicenter of the French Renaissance.
The exhibit features prints, decorative arts like those two vases and a spooky “drageoir” candy dish, growling grotesques like the ones on the walls at Fontainebleau and some amusingly worshipful images of monarchs, like the likeness of King Henry IV in the role of Neptune. One sweet portrait is a chalk-on-paper drawing of the teenage wife of Francis II, who was legendary in her own right: Mary Queen of Scots.
Also at YUAG is a collection of ceremonial and funerary garments made by South American artisans from about 1000 BC to 1500 AD. “Weaving and the Social World: 3,000 Years of Andean Textiles” is on view until Sept. 18.
Admission to Yale museums is always free.
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