For the first time ever, this exhibition will trace the development of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century portrait painting, in both northern and southern Europe side by side.

'Renaissance Faces' will feature many of the great masters of the Renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Holbein, Cranach, Van Eyck and Dürer. The exhibition will comprise around seventy paintings, along with medals, sculptures, drawings and engravings.

'Renaissance Faces' will explore issues of likeness, memory and identity, examining portraits which were commissioned in connection with courtship, friendship and marriage – including self-portraits of artists themselves.

The evolution of the full-length portrait, and an examination of the relatively unexplored area of counter-portraits and the anti-ideal, will be highlights of the exhibition – along with rare loans and new research into the works on display.
Renaissance Faces is organised with the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.