Roman funerary sculpture: catalogue of the collections

Journal of Roman Studies, 2007

Cover design by Susanne Wilhelm. Cover image: Scroll showing a "representation of the column erected in Constantinople in honor of the Emperor Theodosius," Louvre, Arts Graphiques, Inv. 4951, attributed to Battista Franco, Venetian school, 16th century (photograph by Jean-Gilles Berizzi. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY). Front cover, detail of Anderson this volume, p. 243 fig. 3; back cover, detail of Anderson this volume, p. 242, fig. 1.

Like the last exhibition in Rome to Augustus, in 1937-38, the Augusto exhibition at Rome's Scuderie del Quirinale celebrated an event: his death, the 2,000th anniversary of which was on 19 August 2014. The exhibition was one of numerous cultural events, conferences and exhibitions on the first Roman emperor (http:// augustus2014.com/2014-events/). This exhibition (also shown in Paris with the title 'Moi, Auguste, Empereur de Rome') impressively drew objects from the Vatican Museums and other museums throughout Italy and abroad including the Louvre, British Museum, Kunsthistorisches in Vienna and Ny Carlsberg in Copenhagen. Despite the extraordinary loan of key objects, the design and layout of the show in Rome missed an opportunity to highlight new interpretive modes of display, especially for ancient Roman sculpture and material culture. However, the exhibition provided an ideal opportunity for scholars to study the objects closely and make comparisons. The lighting, for the most part, was well adjusted for viewing the varying surface qualities of the marbles: from powdery, weathered (or acid-bathed) surfaces to those that were highly polished or painted. The first section of the exhibition presented portraiture, from colossal and full-length statues to heads and gems. The second section included sculptures related to cult images, polychrome terracotta panels from public buildings, fragments found in the Forum of Augustus, silverware, including pieces from the Louvre's Boscoreale treasure, red ware and their press-moulds, the so-called Grimani Reliefs brought together for the first time, and the Medinaceli/Actium Reliefs. Media and typology determined the placement of objects (all portrait heads together, all gems together, all silver together, etc.). A chance was thus missed to juxtapose diverse three-dimensional objects to evoke the interaction between the various arts of the Augustan world. In terms of display, one of the most successful rooms was dedicated to portrait heads. Nothing frustrates scholars of Roman portraiture more than not being able to see these in profile and from the back. The room opened with the fragmentary bronze equestrian statue of Augustus from Athens, exhibited in Italy for the first time. Then, chronologically related portraits were set together at varying angles and installed on curved island bases in the centre of the room. The movement of visitors activated the portraits: as heads appeared to turn previously obscured profiles came into view, as if looking through a crowd. The placement allowed visitors to move around the portraits, providing a stunning panorama of the most important visages from the time of Augustus: the emperor himself, Livia, and his extended family. Agrippa's portrait from the Louvre stood out in its rugged vigour when viewed across from the soft rendering of Pompey from Venice. The striking differences in quality, expression and facial details in the various portraits of Octavian/ Augustus were also showcased. The highlight of the exhibition was the room dedicated to the Augustus of Prima Porta, the Naples Doryphoros and the Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, on view together for the first time. The confrontation between Augustus' portraits in the two statues highlighted the properties of Greek marble to convey the powerful gaze of the first emperor, whose portrait-type embodied the contradictory qualities of youthful vitality and experience. Besides the opportunity to compare the Prima Porta statue with the Doryphoros, which were placed side by side, the display also allowed visitors to see the backs

Sabine Rogge, Christina Ioannou, Theodoros Mavrojannis (eds.) Salamis of Cyprus History and Archaeology from the Earliest Times to Late Antiquity Conference in Nicosia, 21–23 May 2015. Schriften des Instituts für Interdisziplinäre Zypern-Studien, vol. 13, pp. 591-608., 2019

to thank the organizers for inviting me to this conference and for giving me the opportunity to talk about the Roman sculptures from the gymnasium and the theatre of Salamis. I also would like to extend my gratitude to Despo Pilides, Curator of Museums at the Department of Antiquities, for granting me permission to study some sculptures in the Cyprus Museum, as well as Eftychia Zachariou and Maria Hatzinicolaou, Archaeological offi cers, and Skevi Christodoulou for providing me with information and photographs.

Roman Sculpture in Context (SPAAA6), 2020

This volume tackles a pressing issue in Roman art history: that many sculptures conventionally used in our scholarship and teaching lack adequate information about their find locations. Questions of context are complex, and any theoretical and methodological reframing of Roman sculpture demands academic transparency. This volume is dedicated to privileging content and context over traditions of style and aesthetics. Through case studies, the chapters illustrate multivariate ways to contextualize ancient objects. The authors encourage Roman art historians to look beyond conventional interpretations; to reclaim from the study of Greek sculpture the Roman originals that are too often relegated to discussions of “copies” and “models”; to consider the multiple, dynamic, and shifting contexts that one sculpture could experience over the centuries of its display; and to recognize that postantique receptions can also offer insight into interpretations of ancient viewers. The collected topics were originally presented in three conference sessions: “Grounding Roman Sculpture” (Archaeological Institute of America, 2019); “Ancient Sculpture in Context” (College Art Association, 2017); and “Ancient Sculpture in Context II: Reception” (College Art Association, 2019).

The dispute over the question" Is there such a thing as a Roman style?" has centered largely on the field of sculpture, and for quite understandable reasons. Even if we discount the wholesale importing and copying of Greek originals, the reputation of the Romans as imitators seems borne out by large quantities of works that are probably adaptations and variants of Greek models of every period. While the Roman demand for sculpture was tremendous, much of it may be attributed to antiquarianism, both the learned and the fashionable variety, and to a taste for sumptuous interior decoration. There are thus whole categories of sculpture produced under Roman auspices that deserve to be classified as "deactivated" echoes of Greek creations, emptied of their former meaning and reduced to the status of highly refined works of craftsmanship. At times this attitude extended to Egyptian sculpture as well, creating a vogue for pseudo-Egyptian statuary. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that some kinds of sculpture had serious and important functions in ancient Rome. They represent the living sculptural tradition, in contradistinction to the antiquarian-decorative trend. We shall concern ourselves here mainly with those aspects of Roman sculpture that are most conspicuously rooted in Roman society: portraiture and narrative relief.

The Sculptural Environment of the Roman Near East: Reflections on Culture, Ideology, and Power, hg. Y. Z. Eliav - E. A. Friedland - S. Herbert, Leuven 2008, 273-293