5 reasons to see “Roman Art from the Louvre”
Earrings with Cabochons and Pendants, sixth century A.D., provenance unknown, gold, garnet, molten colored glass. (Photos by David McDaniel, The Oklahoman)
From Monday’s The Oklahoman.
Five reasons to see Roman show
Sunday last day to view before return to Louvre
“Roman Art from the Louvre,” the largest special exhibit the Oklahoma City Museum of Art has ever hosted, will soon march back to France.
The Oklahoma City museum is the third and final U.S. venue to host the exhibit, and it closes here Sunday.
The exhibit offers an once-in-a-lifetime chance to see artwork from one of the world’s preeminent museums here in Oklahoma. It features 184 antiquities, including colossal sculptures, detailed mosaics and ornate sarcophagi.
The Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s curators have identified five must-see – and possibly overlooked – reasons to visit the exhibit before it leaves – or to view it one more time before it’s gone forever.
Mirror, late first century B.C., discovered at Boscoreal (Italy), 1895, silver, traces of gilding.
1. Silver mirror: Roman women didn’t have glass mirrors for their dressing tables, but affluent ladies might own a silver hand mirror. Not only would it show the reflection, it would serve as a symbol of wealth and status, said assistant curator Jennifer Klos.
It is part of the Boscoreale treasure of artifacts that survived the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The finely tooled mirror depicts the mythical story of the god Jupiter (also known as Zeus) taking on the form of a swan to seduce Leda, the wife of Tyndareus, king of the Greek city-state Sparta.
Lintel with Inscription from Gabii, April 23, 140 A.D., discovered in Gabii (near Rome), marble.
2. Lintel: Look up when you stroll through the exhibit: This elaborately carved 5,900-pound lintel, a piece of architecture that spans the top of a doorway, is displayed high up as it would be in the temple in Gabii (near Rome) where it was found.
The more than 10-foot-wide marble slab is one antiquity visitors to the Louvre haven’t seen.
“It is so big an artwork that we could not exhibit it in the Louvre because though the museum is huge, we don’t have enough room for that. So it has been in storage,” said Daniel Roger, curator of the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities for the Louvre.
The lintel came from a temple dedicated to Domitia, wife of Emperor Domitian, by a couple of former slaves the empress freed.
From back to front, Falcon, Egyptian later period or second century A.D., discovered in Italy, in Tivoli (?), basanite encrusted with yellow marble, and Cynocephalic Ape, Egyptian later period or Roman era, discovered in Italy, possibly in Rome or Tivoli, diorite.
3. Egyptian sculptures: These statuettes of a falcon and a cynocephalic baboon, a kind of ape with a dog-like muzzle, look more Egyptian than Roman for good reason. Egypt became a Roman province in 30 B.C.
“Egyptomania swept Rome in the late period, particularly during the period of (Emperor) Hadrian,” said Hardy George, the Oklahoma City museum’s chief curator. “He collected them and there was an interest in things Egyptian.”
Hadrian, who ruled from A.D. 117 to 138, used Egyptian artworks to decorate his villa at Tivoli (an ancient Italian town near Rome), setting a style for other well-to-do Romans.
Diptych Leaf of Consul Areobindus, 506 A.D., Constantinople (Turkey), elephant ivory.
4. Ivory diptych: With election season heating up, the Diptych Leaf of Consul Areobindus holds particular interest. A diptych is a two-piece hinged tablet. “Consular diptychs” were a Roman political tradition: Those elected to high civil offices such as consul would give prominent citizens who supported their candidacy the richly carved ivory tablets as thank you gifts.
“It was a kind of tablet used to record things, and it didn’t contain paper, it contained a piece of wax so that they could actually inscribe notes on the wax,” George said.
Areobindus was a war hero who married Princess Anicia Juliana, daughter of Olybrius, one of the last western Roman emperors.
The kinds of carvings on this late Roman work, dating to A.D. 506, became typical of early Christian artwork, George said.
The exhibit includes half the diptych, which also is unusual because it is one of the few artworks in the exhibit that was signed by the artist.
“Artists didn’t sign their works; that comes in the Renaissance with the cult of the individual,” said George, noting the signature is on the back.
Monetary Jewel, second or third century A.D., discovered in Syria (?), gold.
5. Jewelry: Exquisite necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets and hairpins have survived the centuries despite their delicacy.
Women often wore many trinkets at the same time, including brooches called fibulae, which were not only decorative but also were used to hold together the stola, the woman’s answer to the toga.
“This idea of adornment was very important to women. Men wore jewelry as well, but (it) was much more important for women to be seen wearing this sense of wealth and status symbol,” she said.
In contrast, the Monetary Jewel, a gold chain with two coins stamped with the images of powerful emperors Trajan and Hadrian, would have been a ceremonial piece not meant to be worn, George said.
IF YOU GO
“Roman Art from the Louvre”
When: Through Sunday. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.
Where: Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive.
Admission: $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, free to children 5 and younger and museum members.
Information: 236-3100 or www.okcmoa.com.
-BAM
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