Ancient statues emerge from the shadows in blockbuster Rome show
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[October 13, 2020]
By Crispian Balmer
ROME (Reuters) - After decades locked away
in a basement, some of the finest sculptures from antiquity have been
pulled from the gloom and returned to public view in Rome.
Busts of Roman emperors, intricate sarcophagi and an ancient Greek
relief carved 2,500 years ago are just some of the 92 pieces on display
in the city's Palazzo Caffarelli.
The marbles belong to the aristocratic Torlonia family and represent a
fraction of their 620 sculptures, believed to be the largest such
private collection in the world.
"We could do seven, eight, 15 more exhibitions," said art historian
Salvatore Settis, who was picked by the family to help curate the show
and had the difficult task of deciding which works should see the light
of day.
Like many leading Rome families, the Torlonias initially put their huge
collection on display in a museum. But after 101 years, they locked its
doors in 1976, looking to convert the building into private apartments.
"The reappearance of such a legendary collection is a very important
event," said Settis. "When I saw them for the first time it was very
emotional because I knew most of those pieces from books, but I had
never seen them."
The Torlonias, who built their wealth off the back of papal contracts,
snapped up established collections, some dating back to the 15th
century, and built up a collection of collections.
Among the pieces on view is a fountain basin carved in ancient Greece
that was believed to have stood in the garden of Julius Caesar when it
was already considered an antiquity.
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Statues from the "Torlonia Marbles" are seen during an exhibition
that brings together some 96 ancient sculptures comprising of
bronze, marble and alabaster statues in Rome, Italy October 12,
2020. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Many of the works have undergone substantial restoration over the
years, including a statue of a goat whose body dates to the first
century AD but whose head is believed to have been created by the
famed 17th century Italian sculptor Bernini.
Anna Maria Carruba helped prepare the statues for the exhibition.
"Many of these pieces were already restored from 1600 onwards. We
didn't need to work on the structure of the statues but only on the
surfaces, cleaning them, removing the dust that had accumulated over
the years and materials used in previous restorations," she said.
The "Torlonia Marbles" show had been due to open in April, but was
pushed back because of the coronavirus. It runs in Rome until June
2021 and is expected to move on to at least one other European
country and the United States before returning to Italy where it
will be given a permanent home.
(Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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