Myth and Marble
Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection
The Torlonia Foundation is the world’s most important private collection of ancient Roman sculpture. Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection will bring the greatest of these works to the United States for the first time, including superb portrait busts, large-scale figures of gods and goddesses, magnificent sarcophagi, and other relief carvings.
The “collection of collections”—encompassing three centuries of antiquities heritage and comprising over six hundred works—was once displayed at the Torlonia Museum in Rome. The museum closed at the onset of World War II, leaving these masterpieces largely unseen by the public until 2020.
The North American presentation will feature 58 highlights from the Torlonia Collection, including 24 newly restored works that have not been on view in nearly a century. Both intimate and monumental, the sculptures range in date from approximately the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD, with the majority of the works dating to the High Imperial period of the 1st to 2nd centuries AD, the height of ancient Roman artistic innovation.
The works of the Torlonia Collection have been carefully studied and preserved by the Torlonia Foundation thanks to the support of Bvlgari in the Laboratori Torlonia. The Torlonia Foundation articulated program is made possible by the support of Chiomenti.
Co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, in collaboration with the Kimbell Art Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and The Museum Box, Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection offers an unprecedented opportunity for American audiences to experience one of the most significant collections of ancient Roman sculpture ever assembled.
