Room 55

Pisanello’s The Vision of Saint Eustace fills a sacred encounter with the animals and equipment of a hunt. The detail suits a world in which rulers and courtiers valued both devotion and the skills and privileges of noble life. The ruling families of Ferrara, Mantua and Milan employed painters to make religious images and to display their status. Artists moved between courts, carrying designs and techniques with them. Cosimo Tura’s angular draperies and unusual forms offer a different response from Pisanello’s close observation. Choose a small natural detail, then look at the whole arrangement around it. Court painting could bring careful description and conspicuous invention into the same picture.