National Gallery of Art curator to speak at the Maier

National Gallery of Art curator Allison Luchs will discuss how maiolica artists adapted major works of Renaissance and even ancient art into ceramics during a special lecture, “Bringing the Masters Home: Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo on the Renaissance Table,” next month. 

The lecture, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2 at the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, focuses on objects featured in the Maier exhibit Performance and Display: The Art of Renaissance Maiolica.

Jake Lofaso ’25, now the museum’s registrar, curated the exhibition last spring, with guidance from art history professor Andrea Campbell, as part of his senior capstone project. 

It features maiolica ceramics—ranging from apothecary jars to tableware—from the Italian Renaissance, highlighting a period marked by incredible advances in the arts and sciences and the creation of ceramics that blended artistic innovation with scientific experimentation. 

The maiolica’s imagery, referring to Classical literature and the Bible, and its relationship to monumental painting and sculpture speak to the elevated purpose of this art form that can shed light on the social history of the period. 

On display through Nov. 15, the exhibition includes items on loan from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Art, where Luchs is curator of Early European Sculpture and the deputy head of the Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts. 

A reception will follow the lecture.