Safely stored away during gallery renovations, all 196 pieces of RISD's Gilded Frost and Jet Chandelier by Dale Chihuly have been expertly reinstalled.
Books of hours made during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance were products of collaboration between scribes, illuminators, bookbinders, and, sometimes, the original patron or owner. A recent acquisition of a French book of hours made in Rouen around 1510 tells the story of this collaboration through the structure of its contents, iconography, and assembly.
In 1969, artist Andy Warhol was invited to curate an exhibition at the RISD Museum using works from the permanent collection that were not on view, but in storage.
In the winter of 1886, the neighborhoods of Paris were transformed by an unusually heavy snowfall that lingered on the branches of trees and captured the imagination of the artist Berthe Morisot.
A colossal Romanesque head in the RISD collection has yet to be securely identified, but the sheen of his nose suggests that it was rubbed by many penitent hands during the course of this sculpture’s life.
This late fifteenth-century Virgin and Child was created with subtlety, flexibility, and portability in mind. These features were central to its medieval use—and its use at the RISD Museum.
This seven-foot-tall Christ would have been suspended above an altar or screen, the juxtaposition of his damaged body and calm, downward gaze reminding those below him of both his humanity and his divinity.
Devotional representations of Saint Barbara, a Christian martyr whose legend extended across both Western and Eastern medieval worlds, flourished in fourteenth-century Europe. An examination of the Providence Saint Barbara reveals a sculptural tradition with a complex and colorful practices of medieval devotion to the cult of saints.
Egungun costumes are usually created from a wide variety of carefully chosen fabrics ranging from exquisite samples of local handwoven aso ofi to exotic fabrics imported from aro
A jade lithophone from 18th-century China offers insight to the significant role of ritual music in ancient China—as an essential part of state rite to assert the legitimacy of reign.
RISD Museum intern Alicia Valencia (RISD 2015, Furniture) explains how the act of looking closely formed her impressions on Samuel Gragg's Elastic armchair.
The woman in Frank W. Benson's Lady Trying on a Hat has always been a character who caught my eye during visits to the Museum. From her averted gaze to the contrast between her white dress and the black hat, she is poised to play the lead role on the stage that Benson created.
