The ‘Myth and Marble’ of Rome Comes to America

Happy 2025! Christmas doesn’t stop news from happening, alas, and this past December the glass hive buzzed. Though not a seer, I think the splashiest, grandest exhibition of 2025 in America will be Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection. An impressive selection from a Rome-based private collection, the best outside the Vatican and the museums on the Capitoline, is coming to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kimbell in Fort Worth, we learned in mid December.

I saw the collection in 2021 in Rome, and it was set to come to the U.S. but for Dr. Fauci’s Wuhan lab leak, the Covid pandemic, and subsequent mass hypnosis. The tour had to be canceled. Before the Rome show, it hadn’t been open to the public since the ’30s. The Torlonia family, which assembled the collection over 150 years, has negotiated a new tour, and it will be a glorious experience. Ancient Roman sculpture is a thing of gaudy, riveting realism, especially in imperial sculpture. Emperors look as brutal as they surely were, and their ladies pioneered the extreme perm in hair styles.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

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

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Happy 2025! Christmas doesn’t stop news from happening, alas, and this past December the glass hive buzzed. Though not a seer, I think the splashiest, grandest exhibition of 2025 in America will be Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection. An impressive selection from a Rome-based private collection, the best outside the Vatican and the museums on the Capitoline, is coming to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kimbell in Fort Worth, we learned in mid December.

I saw the collection in 2021 in Rome, and it was set to come to the U.S. but for Dr. Fauci’s Wuhan lab leak, the Covid pandemic, and subsequent mass hypnosis. The tour had to be canceled. Before the Rome show, it hadn’t been open to the public since the ’30s. The Torlonia family, which assembled the collection over 150 years, has negotiated a new tour, and it will be a glorious experience. Ancient Roman sculpture is a thing of gaudy, riveting realism, especially in imperial sculpture. Emperors look as brutal as they surely were, and their ladies pioneered the extreme perm in hair styles.