LONDON, ENGLAND.-Fourteen masterpieces of sculptural relief by celebrated Renaissance artists, including Donatello, Pisanello, Antico and Agostino di Duccio, are going on display at the National Gallery. The Victoria and Albert Museum has lent these important reliefs, while work on their new Medieval and Renaissance galleries is underway. The sculptures will be on show among the 14th- and 15th-century paintings in the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing for at least two years.

This loan gives National Gallery visitors a fantastic opportunity to explore the often-complicated relationship between sculpture and painting in Renaissance Italy and beyond. For the first time, they will be able to judge how reliefs influenced paintings, and vice versa. And they will be able to see, side by side, works by Pisanello who practised in both media.

The fourteen works - including bronzes, marbles, stone and medals - date from the 14th to the 16th centuries. The placing of the reliefs within the National Gallery will allow close examination of how these works influenced painters such as Giotto, Masaccio, Giovanni Bellini, Marco Zoppo and Carlo Crivelli - and how, in turn, a painter such as Mantegna influenced the sculptors, Antico and Antonio Lombardo.

In Room 62 visitors will see Donatello's 'Dead Christ tended by Angels', which was carved in Padua around 1435 - 43, and was probably made for inclusion in an altar complex. This relief became an important source for painters tackling the same subject, especially in Northern Italy; paintings by some of these artists will also be viewed in the same room. The agonised expression and anatomy of Donatello's Christ can be seen in Giovanni Bellini's 'Dead Christ' (probably 1465 - 70) and Zoppo's 'The Dead Christ Supported by Saints' (about 1465).

In reverse, Room 61 will feature the relief of 'Philoctetes on the Island of Lemnos' by Antonio Lombardo (1510 - 15), which took its inspiration from two paintings by Mantegna that hang nearby: 'The Vestal Virgin Tuccia with a sieve' and 'A Woman Drinking' (both, 1495 - 1506). This relief was part of a series featuring ancient myths that Lombardo produced for the Duke of Ferrara. Mantegna created the paintings for the Duke's sister, Isabella. By inserting a piece of coloured marble, Antonio Lombardo was competitively responding to Mantegna's paintings, which were intended to simulate gilt bronze.

The sculptural reliefs will return to the V&A in time for the opening of their new Medieval and Renaissance galleries in 2009. These galleries will be the culmination of the £75 million first phase of the V&A's FuturePlan project to transform the museum. Generously supported by Jonathan and Ute Kagan and by Daniel Katz.