The Lives of Paintings – Presence, Agency and Likeness in Venetian Art of the Sixteenth Century

In sixteenth-century Venice, paintings were often treated as living beings. Paintings attended dinner parties, healed the sick, made money, and even became involved in love affairs. Presenting a range of case studies, Elsje van Kessel offers here a detailed examination of the agency exerted by paintings and other two-dimensional images. Grounded in the theoretical literature on the agency of material things, The Lives of Paintings contributes to Venetian studies as well as engaging with wider debates in art history.