National Gallery to Stage the Largest Ever Piero della Francesca Exhibition in 2027
The National Gallery in London will stage the largest exhibition ever devoted to Piero della Francesca next autumn. Announced on 29 October 2026, Piero della Francesca will run in the Sainsbury Wing from 2 October 2027 to 30 January 2028, bringing together around 25 pictures and manuscripts, including the famous double portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza lent by the Uffizi in Florence.
🖼️ Get this painting as a print →Also as a vintage poster →
What: Piero della Francesca, described as the largest exhibition ever devoted to the artist
Where: National Gallery, London (Sainsbury Wing)
When: 2 October 2027 – 30 January 2028; announced 29 October 2026
Who: Curated by Laura Llewellyn (National Gallery) and Machtelt Brüggen Israëls (Rijksmuseum and University of Amsterdam)
Section: Museums & Exhibitions
What happened
According to The Art Newspaper, the show will gather around 25 pictures and manuscripts and will be organised around what the gallery calls the building blocks of Piero’s art: colour, design, space, perspective, narrative and light. Alongside the Uffizi’s Urbino Diptych of around 1472, the loans named so far include the Perugia altarpiece of about 1468 from the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, which the National Gallery calls the “Sant’Antonio Polyptych”, and the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels from the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The Art Newspaper also reports a digital presentation of Piero’s fresco cycle The Legend of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in Arezzo, which cannot travel.
The National Gallery’s own three Pieros will be at the heart of the show: The Baptism of Christ, Saint Michael and The Nativity. The gallery says some of his most celebrated altarpieces will be reunited for the first time in centuries. The exhibition is supported by Intesa Sanpaolo and John J. Studzinski, among others; ticket prices have not yet been announced. For comparison, The Art Newspaper notes that the previous largest Piero exhibition, at the Hermitage in 2018, had 11 works.
Why it matters
Piero is one of the hardest Renaissance painters to see in depth. Much of his finest work is fixed to the walls of churches in Arezzo, Sansepolcro and Monterchi, and his panels are fragile and rarely lent, so most visitors know him through a handful of images. A show built on themes rather than chronology also suits an artist who was a mathematician as much as a painter: he wrote a treatise on perspective, De prospectiva pingendi, and his pictures are famous for their calm geometry and clear, pale light. With a full year of notice, this is the kind of exhibition people plan a trip to London around.
The painting behind the story
The Baptism of Christ, shown at the top of this story, is the picture most people think of when they hear Piero’s name. The National Gallery dates it to probably about 1437–45 and records that it was made for the church of San Giovanni Battista in Val d’Afra in Piero’s home town, Borgo Sansepolcro. Christ stands in a shallow, winding stream as John the Baptist pours water over his head, the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers above, and three angels look on. The gallery points out how carefully Piero placed every figure in proportion, so that the landscape opens into depth while the whole scene stays in perfect balance. It was bought by the National Gallery in 1861. For his other London masterpiece, the unfinished-looking Nativity with its singing angels, see The Christmas Story in Five Paintings.
Hang Piero’s Baptism of Christ — the still river, the dove and the three angels — as a vintage art poster from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.
Get the vintage poster →See the vintage poster collection →License this image →
Hang Piero’s Baptism of Christ — the still river, the dove and the three angels — as a print, canvas or framed print from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.
Choose your size and frame →Piero’s Nativity as a vintage poster →Printed and shipped by Fine Art America · 30-day money-back guarantee
💬 Over to you: Which Piero would you travel to London to see: the Baptism, the Montefeltro portraits or the reunited Perugia altarpiece? And where in the world are you reading from? Tell us in the comments.
Comments
Post a Comment