Masterpieces of the Torlonia Collection at the Louvre

 

La Fanciulla (The young girl) 1st C. B.C. Possibly found at Vulci, N.W. of Rome

The above bust of a young girl is one of the 90 works on show in the Torlonia Collection at the Louvre. The statue would have had incrusted eyes and metal attachments- earrings and possibly a gilded metal headdress. The purity of the smooth skin contrasts with the finely chiseled details- a true masterpiece as the Exhibition's title states.

The Roman marbles of the Torlonia Collection could not possibly have a more beautiful setting than the Anne of Austria apartment at the Louvre, one of the museum's most precious decors:

The rooms were decorated specially for Louis XIV's mother in the mid 1650s by Roman painter Giovanni Francesco Romanelli. Queen Anne felt stifled in the main building of the Louvre so these airy summer apartments looking on to the Seine  river were created for her. They are decorated with mythological scenes and have recently been magnificently restored:

 After this exhibition, the apartment will be closed  until 2027 while more restoration takes place.  Then it will be reopened with the Louvre's Roman antiquities in a new display.

The  Torlonia family collection was first shown to the public in 1876 by prince Alessandro Torlonia. The collection's 650 works have been hidden away for seven decades since the 1960s. They were recently brought out of storage and shown in 2021 in Rome, then in Milan.

Natale Carta: Portrait of Alessandro Torlonia (1800-1886) ca 1840  Private Collection

The origins of the Torlonia family, which sounds very Italian, in fact go back to a Frenchman from the central Auvergne region of France. His name was Marin Tourlonias and he worked as a valet for a certain cardinal Acquaviva who left him an inheritance with which he started a business importing cloth from France. Marin then began money-lending and the family became bankers to both Pope Pious VII and the Bonaparte family, gaining land and titles. They bought properties and organised excavations, while purchasing other great collections.

 Nobility was granted to the Torlonias in 1794- to Giovanni, Marin's second son. Part of being aristocratic was owning a respectable collection of Greek or Roman antiquities. Giovanni and his son  Alessandro developed their collection and decided to open it to the public in the Torlonia Villa.

The Collection contains only one bronze statue- an energetic figure representing Germanicus (15BC to 19AD), father of Caligula. Such full-length statues showed the heroic quality of the subject: 

Early 1st century AD bronze, inspired by Hellenistic Greek models of  4th to 1st C BC

The Romans admired Greek art and often employed Greek workmen to make copies of ancient Greek sculptures.  The drunken satyr below is shown in a moment of Dionysiac abandon- he was probably reclining- although the restoration work on his body has made him look more like a dancer: 

 

Bust of a drunken satyr 1st C AD. Roman copy of a Greek work from 2nd C B.C.

The Romans liked realism. Euthydemus, below looks like someone you might meet nowadays:

Portrait of an elderly man, known as 'Euthydemus of Bactria' ca 200 B.C. Pentelic marble

 (Athens, Greece)

Demonstrating the taste for realistic genre subjects in the 3rd century BC, there is a statue of a child playing with a goose, perhaps placed in a garden. The unknown sculptor captures the action:

Child playing with a goose  Roman copy of an original Greek work from 3rd/2nd centuries BC

The original Greek work would have been in bronze. 

In the portrait section, the Torlonia collection possesses several busts of emperors, including Septimus Severus who built the great triumphal arch in Rome. Here the gravity of age is shown along with the new-style toga of 203 A.D. :

The bust once belonged to sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi who was a restorer of antique statues in the second half of the eighteenth century.  His whole workshop was purchased by the Torlonias. In 1825, the family also bought about 270 sculptures from the Giustiniani collection, founded by prestigious banker Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637) who employed Gian Lorenzo Bernini among others to restore his sculptures.

Septimus is joined by an earlier Emperor - Hadrian, acquired as part of the Albani collection when the Torlonia family bought the Albani villa in 1866. Hadrian is dressed as a soldier:

Bust of Hadrian, Roman Emperor from 117 to 138 A.D. marble 130s A.D.

From the period of Hadrian, the exhibition has a full length statue of a female deity, known as 'Hestia'.

This masterpiece is unique, being the only complete copy of an original Greek work in the 'severe' style around 470/460 BC, the period between the archaic period and the classical period. The original was probably in bronze, representing Hera or Demeter. Made of Parian marble, like the Louvre's famous Winged Victory, Hestia (goddess of the sacred hearth) stands 2 metres high as a solemn monument to ancient Greece:

Deity with peplos, known as 'Hestia Giustiniani'  2nd C. Roman copy of Greek original ca 470-460 BC

Also via the Giustiniani Collection, came a sensuous crouching Aphrodite, a 1st century Roman copy of a work from the expressive Hellenistic period of Greek art (4th to 1st century BC).
Venus, as the Romans knew her, was one of the most popular statues in the Roman world:

Crouching Aphrodite Roman 1st C. copy of Greek  mid-3rd C. BC original

In past centuries it was felt necessary to complete statues whose heads or arms were missing. A similar version of Aphrodite is to be seen here. She is normally on permanent display in the Louvre. Unlike her sister in the Torlonia Collection, she has not had her head or arms restored:

Crouching Aphrodite Roman 2C copy of Greek original from mid-3rd C B.C Louvre.

When two headless, armless statues of Dacian captives were placed as decoration on the Borghese palace in Rome, it is understandable that heads and arms were added. One of these statues, usually in the Louvre, is in the present exhibition to show the similarities between the two sister collections. The restoration work (head and arms) was done in the 16th century by Pietro Bernini (1562-1629), Gian Lorenzo's father:

A Dacian captive early 2nd century  AD Porphyry from Egypt and Carrara marble (head and arms ) 

  One of the stars of the exhibition is an expressive goat. The Romans had a liking for animal statues. The goat's head was magnificently restored by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini:

Statue of goat beginning of 2nd century A.D. Marble

The section devoted to funerary sculpture is a precious insight into Roman life- for example the relief sculpture of a butcher's shop, complete with hanging carcases which may have been an actual shop sign or part of a tomb:

mid-2nd century AD

This exhibition makes clear how difficult and painstaking the restoration of these precious antique relics can be. The statue of Herakles below was recomposed using many pieces of  original statues, from ancient and modern times. The cracks have been left intentionally to show the 112 fragments composing the 3D jigsaw puzzle:

  

Restored Herakles, using ancient and modern fragments and several different marbles

 Two enormous marble 'tazze' are on show- basins used perhaps in a courtyard or for a fountain:

Krater decorated with banquet scenes, known as the 'Tazza Cesi' Late 2nd C/early1st C. BC
          Pentelic marble

The above 'tazza' was in a Roman church until Cardinal Cesi put it in his garden in the 16th century. Then Cardinal Albani purchased it, two centuries later, before it joined the Torlonia Collection.

A magnificent exhibition in a wonderful setting, the Torlonia Exhibition finishes on 6th January, 2025

The exhibition is on level 0. Visitors may reach it via the early Greek art rooms in the Denon wing:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Masterpieces of the Torlonia Collection,

in the Louvre       

Metro: Palais Royal

Until the 6th January 2025

Opening times of Louvre: Every day, except Tuesday, 9am to 6pm 

(late opening on Wed and Friday eve until 9pm) 

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