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Bust of a Young Gaul (ca. 200 BCE)
Fine-grained marble, Roman [Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA, Feb 21-May 11] Courtesy of the American Federation of Arts © AFA/ Musée du Louvre/ Anne Chauvet
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While the Musée du Louvre in Paris is renovating its Roman galleries, it is sending approximately 180 masterworks from it’s unrivaled Roman art collection on tour. The recently expanded Seattle Art Museum will be the only westcoast venue on a three-museum tour of the United States to host the exhibition.
Tracing the period from the late first century BCE to the fourth century CE, Roman Art from the Louvre, provides a broad view of ancient Rome is examined, from the elite lives of the emperor and his court to the lives of ordinary citizens, soldiers, gladiators, slaves and foreigners.
Approximately 180 original works spanning nearly 300 years of antiquity is presented thematically through frescoes, mosaics, monumental sculptures, terra-cotta statuettes, and marble reliefs. Included in this collection are statues of emperors Augustus, Caligula, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius as well as busts of other prominent Romans such as Agrippa and Livia.
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Portrait of Lucilla (ca. 2nd half of 2nd century BCE) Grey-veined marble, Roman [Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA, Feb 21-May 11] Courtesy of the American Federation of Arts © AFA/ Musée du Louvre/ Anne Chauvet
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The show emphasizes the varied roles that Roman art played in the post-Classical period and its continued influence on art today. Aspects of everyday Roman life in both the public and private arenas are represented by everyday objects such as glass vases, silver implements, gold jewelry and other household items found at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Themes of religion, urbanism, war, imperial expansion, funerary practices, intellectual life, and family are conveyed through urns, sarcophagi, ritual objects, military medallions and iconographic statues of Isis, Venus, Minerva and Bacchu. Early depictions of circus games, portraits of actors, and theatrical masks provide insight into multiple areas of Roman culture. The exhibit also focuses on ways the Romans celebrated the dead.
The exhibition will close with ancient statues that have been repeatedly repaired and altered since the Renaissance, reflecting both the importance of Roman art and the way in which it has been collected, interpreted, and restored over the centuries.
www.seattleartmuseum.org
