Painted Love

at the Holburne Museum, Bath 

until 1 October 

I can't help thinking that the title of the exhibition at the Holburne Museum in Bath is more than a little ironic, and should read: Painted 'Love'. As the Museum's own description of the exhibition states, 'Wedlock was often the culmination of years of negotiations, with portraits of eligible women and men being in demand and circulated from an early age.' In the words of the late, lamented Tina Turner, 'What's love got to do with it?' You married who your parents told you to marry, and if love developed, so much the better. 

The exhibition includes a wide range of paintings associated with marriage - portraits of eligible men and women, portraits painted to celebrate the wedding, and portraits of the happy (or not so happy) couple, either beautifully idealised or remarkable naturalistic. The works are drawn from museums across the UK, together with lesser-known exhibits from private collections. There are also 'objects associated with the rituals of marriage: love tokens, rings, gifts, and commemorative tableware', but not, I assume (being the Renaissance), toasters. Not that people give toasters anymore, as far as I am aware. 

As well as being a rich array of sumptuous works of art, the exhibition will also give us a better idea of the way in which the patrons of Renaissance art conducted their lives - essential for a good understanding of the art of the period. As ever, I will walk us round the exhibition, looking at the best of what promises to be a superb window on the art of the 15th and 16th centuries. And if you have not yet visited the Holburne, it is a museum which is well worth a visit in its own right: Painted Love is the perfect excuse to go.