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Love and War: A Manual for Life in the Late Middle Ages

November 8, 1998 – January 31, 1999
East Building, Ground Floor, Northwest

Israhel van Meckenem, The Dance at the Court of Herod, c. 1500, engraving, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.138

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: The exhibition presented 56 drawings from the Housebook manuscript, owned by the Prince of Waldburg-Wolfegg family. The drawings were available for display while the book was unbound for conservation and reproduction.The manuscript depicts aspects of secular medieval life such as jousting, military sieges, and astrology. The exhibition also included related prints by the Master of the Housebook and other artists from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and from the National Gallery of Art and other American collections.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art. Andrew Robison, Andrew W. Mellon senior curator at the National Gallery of Art, and Virginia Clayton, associate curator of old master prints at the National Gallery of Art, were curators.

Attendance: 48,539

Catalog: Venus and Mars: The World of the Medieval Housebook, by Christoph Graf zu Waldburg-Wolfegg. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1998.

Other Venues: Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main, September 17–November 1, 1997
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, November 11, 1997–January 19, 1998
Haus der Kunst, Munich, July 24–October 11, 1998
The Frick Collection, New York, May 18–July 25, 1999