Torlonia Collection: Roman Empire Second Wind Sweeps Montreal

Two weeks ago, I was looking at Mount Rushmore, our epic, go-big-or-go-home brand of American civic sculpture. Two thousand years ago, what were the Romans doing with sculpture?

Emperors and their wives, visionaries and connivers, weird cult sculptures, fancy tombs, kinky nudes, gods, goddesses, and a majestic goat, that’s what, as we learn at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in The Torlonia Collection: Masterpieces of Roman Sculpture. Through nearly 60 sculptures between around 300 b.c. and a.d. 200, we travel to the world of Veni, Vidi, Vici.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Two weeks ago, I was looking at Mount Rushmore, our epic, go-big-or-go-home brand of American civic sculpture. Two thousand years ago, what were the Romans doing with sculpture?

Emperors and their wives, visionaries and connivers, weird cult sculptures, fancy tombs, kinky nudes, gods, goddesses, and a majestic goat, that’s what, as we learn at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in The Torlonia Collection: Masterpieces of Roman Sculpture. Through nearly 60 sculptures between around 300 b.c. and a.d. 200, we travel to the world of Veni, Vidi, Vici.