The Frick Collection has opened “Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450-1500,” the first exhibition anywhere to focus on the Tuscan city as a center of bronze sculpture during the Italian Renaissance, at its home at 1 East 70th Street on the Upper East Side. The show opened Thursday, October 15, 2026, runs through Monday, January 18, 2027, and brings together nearly forty statues, reliefs, candelabra and medals, many of which have never been shown outside of Tuscany, let alone in the United States.

The works are by some of the period’s most influential sculptors, among them Donatello, Vecchietta and Francesco di Giorgio. Between 1450 and 1500, Siena relied on bronze more heavily than almost any other city in Italy, a concentration the exhibition presents as a golden age of the medium. Bronze was costly, technically demanding and endlessly reusable, and in times of war or necessity sculptures were melted down and recast for more utilitarian uses, which is why the works that survive are exceptionally rare. The exhibition gathers virtually every Sienese bronze from the period that could safely travel.

“Between 1450 and 1500, almost nowhere in Italy did local artistic traditions rely so heavily on a single medium as Siena’s did on bronze,” said Giulio Dalvit, the Frick’s associate curator, who organized the show and authored its catalogue. “Yet, the Tuscan city has been celebrated chiefly for its paintings. Now, we are excited to bring long-overdue attention to Sienese bronze sculpture, exploring both the medium’s and the city’s underappreciated importance in Renaissance art history. 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.”