Sculpture and the Museum is the first in-depth examination of the varying roles and meanings assigned to sculpture in museums and galleries during the modern period, from neo-classical to contemporary art practice. It considers a rich array of curatorial strategies and settings in order to examine the many reasons why sculpture has enjoyed a position of such considerable importance - and complexity - within the institutional framework of the museum and how changes to the museum have altered, in turn, the ways that we perceive the sculpture within it. In particular, the contributors consider the complex issue of how best to display sculpture across different periods and according to varying curatorial philosophies. Sculptors discussed include Canova, Rodin, Henry Moore, Flaxman and contemporary artists such as Rebecca Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Mark Dion and Olafur Eliasson, with a variety of museums in America, Canada and Europe presented as case studies. Underlying all of these discussions is a concern to chart the critical importance of the acquisition, placement and display of sculpture in museums and to explore the importance of sculptures as a forum for the expression of programmatic statements of power, prestige and the museum's own sense of itself in relation to its audiences and its broader institutional aspirations.

Sculpture and the Museum is the first in-depth examination of the varying roles and meanings assigned to sculpture in museums and galleries during the modern period, from neo-classical to contemporary art practice. It considers a rich array of curatorial strategies and settings in order to examine the many reasons why sculpture has enjoyed a position of such considerable importance - and complexity - within the institutional framework of the museum and how changes to the museum have altered, in turn, the ways that we perceive the sculpture within it. In particular, the contributors consider the complex issue of how best to display sculpture across different periods and according to varying curatorial philosophies. Sculptors discussed include Canova, Rodin, Henry Moore, Flaxman and contemporary artists such as Rebecca Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Mark Dion and Olafur Eliasson, with a variety of museums in America, Canada and Europe presented as case studies. Underlying all of these discussions is a concern to chart the critical importance of the acquisition, placement and display of sculpture in museums and to explore the importance of sculptures as a forum for the expression of programmatic statements of power, prestige and the museum's own sense of itself in relation to its audiences and its broader institutional aspirations.

The second largest city in 17th-century Europe, Naples constituted a vital Mediterranean center in which the Spanish Habsburgs, the clergy, and Neapolitan aristocracy, together with the resident merchants, and other members of the growing professional classes jostled for space and prestige. Their competing programs of building and patronage created a booming art market and spurred painters such as Jusepe de Ribera, Massimo Stanzione, Salvator Rosa, and Luca Giordano as well as foreign artists such as Caravaggio, Domenichino, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Giovanni Lanfranco to extraordinary heights of achievement. This new reading of 17th-century Italian Baroque art explores the social, material, and economic history of painting, revealing how artists, agents, and the owners of artworks interacted to form a complex and mutually sustaining art world. Through such topics as artistic rivalry and anti-foreign labor agitation, art dealing and forgery, cultural diplomacy, and the rise of the independently arranged art exhibition, Christopher R. Marshall illuminates the rich interconnections between artistic practice and patronage, business considerations, and the spirit of entrepreneurialism in Baroque Italy.