Not Always Roman, Not Always Statues

Marden Nichols, Assistant Curator, Walters Art Museum
“Not Always Roman, Not Always Statues: The Recent Lives of Ancient Roman Statues at the Walters Art Musuem”

Ancient Studies Week Lecture

During the first decades of the 20^th century, Henry Walters purchased several marble statues formed from mismatched ancient heads and bodies conjoined for the purposes of the antiquities market. This lecture traces the origins of these statues back to nineteenth-century European collections. It examines how over time changing attitudes towards antiquity and evolving techniques of research and conservation have altered not only the interpretation of these statues, but even their material form.