Resumen de Piero di Cosimo and centaurophilia in Edwardian London
The writer discusses the 1902 campaign to acquire Piero di Cosimo'sBattle of Centaurs and Lapiths for the National Gallery in London. In early summer 1902, this extraordinary painting was on show at the Carfax Gallery in London. All the artists and critics who saw it were convinced that it should be in the National Gallery, and a campaign was launched to achieve this, although it got nowhere. There were various reasons why the work touched such a vital nerve in 1902. In particular, there was still much overlap and interaction between veterans of the Arts and Crafts movement or of 1890s aestheticism and the painters and critics who were members of the New English Art Club; the response to Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths was one such area of convergence, the work being interpreted in notably different ways by its various devotees.
