The Torlonia marbles in Paris. The largest private collection of sculptures from ancient Rome is on display at the Louvre

Il Louvre hosts Torlonia marbles, for their first exhibition outside Italy, in the renovated summer apartments of Anna of Austria – home to the museum's permanent collection of ancient sculptures since its creation in the late 18th century. The exhibition of the Torlonia marbles alongside the French national collection sheds new light on the origins of museums and on the interest in antiquity, a founding element of Western culture. The exhibition remains open until November 11, 22024 is held in the summer apartments of Anne of Austria and in the adjacent “Salle d'Auguste”, where Roman sculpture has been displayed in the Louvre since 1798. These spaces have been completely renovated and will later host a planned new exhibition of the Roman collection of Louvre.

On display are masterpieces of ancient sculpture by the Torlonia princes

The exhibition features some truly exquisite treasures of Roman art and will explore the origins of museums in Europe during the Enlightenment and the 1870th century. The Torlonia princes followed the aristocratic traditions of papal Rome, developing a passion for ancient sculpture which gave rise to a magnificent collection. The Torlonia Museum, opened in 2020, was designed to emulate large public institutions such as the Vatican and Capitoline museums and the Louvre. Alessandro Torlonia's museum closed its doors in the mid-XNUMXth century after a slow decline, but the Torlonia marbles remained famous in Italy. Since XNUMX, this world-class collection of Roman sculpture has once again been presented to the public in a series of special exhibitions. The exhibitions held in Rome and Milan, curated by Salvatore Settis of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and Carlo Gasparri of the Federico II University of Naples, took visitors on a journey through the history of the collection.

Torlonia Museum and Louvre: a dialogue between two collections

This is an extraordinary collection of ancient marbles, which remained practically unknown until recently, presented in an exhibition space profoundly characterized by its tradition of displaying sculpture in sumptuous settings and of primary importance in the history of the museum. Presenting a selection of exceptional works of art and focusing on the masterpieces of the Torlonia Collection, the exhibition focuses on the most emblematic genres of Roman sculpture with its rich and varied artistic styles. Portraits, funerary sculptures, copies of famous Greek originals, works inspired by classical or archaic Greek art, figures of the thiasos (procession of satyrs and maenads) and allegories make up a repertoire of images and forms that give strength to Roman art. The display of sculptures from both the Torlonia Museum and the Louvre, side by side, will spark a dialogue between these two “sister” collections about their respective histories.

The peculiarity of the Torlonia Collection

Both the last princely collection in Rome, and a forward-looking museum, is best represented here by an exceptional piece, already quite famous in the 17th century: The Goat, restored by Bernini. The Torlonia Museum was founded on the principles of critical selection and scientific presentation; it contained masterpieces of Roman sculpture which testify to the collecting habits of the past. It is in the second half of the nineteenth century that the origins of the collection and the meaning of the selected pieces inspired Alessandro Torlonia to take an innovative step by creating a museum in which the category of works of art known as “antiquities” could be displayed to the public. His museum was shaped by the practice of collecting as a pastime, but it also represented a departure from that approach, resulting instead from the convergence of two historical trends: the aristocratic taste for antiquities and the birth of archeology as a discipline.

Curator of the exhibition: Cécile Giroire, director of the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Louvre Museum.
Research curator: Martin Szewczyk, curator of the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Louvre Museum.
Co-curators: Carlo Gasparri, University of Naples Federico II, Accademia dei Lincei, and Salvatore Settis, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and member of the Institut de France, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.