Cast in Siena, The Frick Opens a Bronze Show on East 70th Street

East 70th Street is about to get a lot heavier. The Frick Collection is bringing in bronze, and plenty of it.

On Thursday, October 15, the museum opens *Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500* in its Ronald S. Lauder Exhibition Galleries, according to the Frick's exhibition page. It runs through January 18, 2027. The museum calls it the first exhibition to focus on Siena as a center of artistic excellence and technical innovation in bronze sculpture.

A City Known for Paint

Siena usually means painting. That is the point of the show. In the Frick's announcement, curator Giulio Dalvit says that between 1450 and 1500 almost nowhere in Italy leaned so hard on a single medium as Siena did on bronze, and yet the city is celebrated chiefly for its pictures. He points to *Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350*, which ran at the Met and the National Gallery in London in 2024 and 2025.

The Frick's version is about sculpture. The museum puts the number at nearly forty works, among them statues, reliefs, candelabra and medals, by sculptors including Donatello, Vecchietta and Francesco di Giorgio.

Many of the pieces have never been shown outside Tuscany. Because of their size and importance, the Frick says, many have never been seen in the United States either.

Many of the pieces have never been shown outside Tuscany.

The Loans

The lender list is long. From Italy, the Frick names the Bargello in Florence, the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia, the Albani Diocesan Museum in Urbino and the Civic Museum of Siena. From abroad come the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and collections in Berlin, Dresden and Vienna.

The museum's own images give a sense of the range. There is a Vecchietta *Resurrection* relief from 1472, from the Frick's own collection. There is a Francesco di Giorgio candelabrum, more than five feet tall, lent from Urbino. And from Berlin comes a small gilded relief of *Bellerophon and the Chimera* from the 1470s.

Dalvit organized the show and wrote the catalogue with a team of international scholars. "Uniting some forty masterworks for the first time in one location, this exhibition highlights the revelatory achievements of Sienese artists, which constitute nothing short of a golden age of bronze sculpture," he said in the museum's announcement. Victoria Schussler, an associate conservator at the Frick, coordinated the scientific analysis behind the book. Louis Vuitton is the principal cultural sponsor, and the Frick lists it on the exhibition page.

Music for the Bronze

The Frick has built two November weekends of music around the show, per its concert season announcement. The Music of Siena arrives on Saturday, November 14, at 2 p.m. in the Garden Court, and again on Sunday, November 15, at 5 p.m. in the Auditorium, with Jasper Snow, Georgia Burashko, Joshua Cheatham and Richard Pittsinger.

The Antwerp ensemble Graindelavoix follows on Sunday, November 22, with Garden Court and Auditorium performances at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. The program centers on *Sena vetus*, which the Frick calls the only known fifteenth-century ceremonial motet in honor of Siena. The Garden Court concerts are free with museum admission, with limited first-come seating.

What to Know Before You Go

The Frick is at 1 East 70th Street, open Wednesday through Monday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Timed tickets are recommended, and adult admission is $30, per the museum's announcement. Wednesday afternoons from 1:30 p.m. are pay what you wish. For more art on view this fall, see our story on the Kusama show coming to Chelsea.

Forty bronzes, one opening day, and a room that will want you to stand close.