https://fr.euronews.com/2020/10/13/a-rome-le-tresor-des-torlonia-est-enfin-devoile
Colectia Torloni, cea mai mare colectie privata de sculpturi si busturi antice, a fost, in sfarsit, expusa publicului larg.
Expozitia intitulata “The Torlonia Marbles, Collecting Masterpieces”, deschisa anul trecut in Palazzo Caffarelli din Roma (parte a Muzeelor Capitoline), cuprinde 96 statui si busturi antice restaurate, datand din perioada sec.V i.e.n - IV e.n.
Colectia a fost infiintata in sec. XIX de printul Alessandro Torlonia, care a strans piesele mostenite intrun muzeu privat, la Roma, continuând traditia marilor familii aristocratice italiene (Borghese, Barberini Doria Panphilj). Conform catalogului intocmit in 1884, colectia cuprindea 620 de piese. Timp de decenii, tezaurul Torloni a ramas departe de ochii publicului.
In sec XX, statul italian a initiat o serie de discutii exploratorii cu mostenitorii familiei Torloni in vederea gasirii unei solutii privind expunerea publica a pieselor din colectie, de o mare valoare istorica si artistica. Discutiile, incepute in 1960, au trenat fara sa se ajunga la un acord, pana in 2016, cand s-a ajuns, in sfarsit, la o intelegere.
Expozitia de la Roma, care va ramane deschisa pana in iunie 2021, va fi urmata de un turneu international in mai multe muzee din Europa, Statele Unite si Asia. Din cauza pandemiei de Corona virus, se pare ca proiectul a fost amanat.
(I.M.)
The largest collection of classical sculpture still in private hands, which had been hidden away in storerooms for much of the past century, has finally gone on public view in Rome.
A Storied Collection of Ancient Sculpture Will Finally See the Light
The Torlonia family assembled one of the world’s most important private collections of statuary. It will go on display in Rome in March, a prelude to a grand tour.
Passing through a leafy courtyard in a beehive of residential rentals owned by Torlonia family companies, Mr. Settis took a sharp right through a nondescript door and into an Aladdin’s Cave of classical art.
He paused before a relief of a ship tied to a mooring block in a harbor, found at the site of the artificial ancient Roman harbor of Portus. “It’s only been studied from photographs, no one has ever seen it,” Mr. Settis told the minister.
Many pieces of the collection were well known without having been viewed, he told reporters.
“When I first entered the warehouse, I recognized dozens of pieces that I’d read about but had never seen,” he said.
Students of classical art would have probably recognized the so-called Hestia Giustiniani, or a bust that has been identified as portraying Euthydemus of Bactria. The collection also includes a restoration by the Baroque-era sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini of a Greek statue depicting a resting goat. It was as though Bernini was “competing with antiquity,” Mr. Settis said of the sculptor’s integration of the work. The curator said that he thought other works in the collection would gain fame once they were known, including the bust of a third century A.D. matron, her hand wrapped in a fine veil.
In the case of the port scene, the restoration brought to light some of the traces of color that originally adorned the surface. Brightly painted sculptures were common in antiquity, but the color rarely survived the passage of time and the tastes of later collectors, who liked their marble sparkling white.
Restoration of the sculptures — some Greek originals, others Roman copies of Greek statues as well as Roman originals — began three years ago.
“The works were not in critical condition, but they were very dirty,” mostly layers of dust that had settled over the years, Mr. Settis explained. The restoration, which was commissioned by the Torlonia family and sponsored by the Bulgari jewelry company, was carried out under the watchful eye of culture ministry experts to “return them to the splendor of antiquity,” the curator said.
In a video on the website of the Torlonia Foundation, the chief restorer, Anna Maria Carruba, frees a statue from a papier-mâché shell imbued with a solvent, and then gently cleans the surface with soft sponges and a toothbrush.
“This has been the most wonderful restoration commission of my life,” she told Ms. Raggi, the mayor, explaining how her team had documented each individual intervention on the statues over the centuries. Ms. Carruba has been working for a decade on the Torlonia Collection.
Different eras used different materials to restore and integrate classical works, and these often left visible traces, she explained. “We’ll do the same, only our materials are more suitable,” she said.
The collection was formed in the 19th century when the Torlonia began acquiring antiquities as befitting Rome’s noble families.
The first lot acquired by the family, at public auction, belonged to the 18th-century restorer and sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, and included ancient statues and sarcophagi, along with terra cotta vases and bronzes that ended up decorating some of the Torlonia family villas. In 1825, the Torlonias acquired 270 works amassed by the 17th-century nobleman and art collector Vincenzo Giustiniani, an admirer of Caravaggio. At the same time, the collection swelled with works found during excavations on Torlonia properties around Rome. In 1866, the family bought the Villa Albani with its collection. It can be visited by appointment.
In 1875, Prince Alessandro Torlonia decided to found a museum on the Via della Lungara. The collection was open only to small groups of visitors, while scholars had sporadic access. In more recent decades, negotiations between the family and the Italian culture authorities to find a suitable showcase for the works never panned out.
In 2014, a descendant, Prince Alessandro Torlonia, created a foundation to promote the collection. Two years later, he and Mr. Franceschini signed an accord to exhibit part of it. The prince died in 2017, but the foundation carried on his wishes.
As the Torlonia sculptures are a “collection of collections,” Mr. Settis explained, the exhibit in the Palazzo Caffarelli will showcase both the collection and the collecting practices of the Roman nobility from the 15th century on.
Under the terms of the accord the 96 statues on show in Rome will travel to museums around the world, though they have not been chosen yet.
The restoration laboratory, which includes a makeshift photo studio, takes up just a portion of the many rooms where the collection is stored. In the dark, sculptures wait for their turn to be scrubbed.
To this viewer, the most striking were the dozens of busts: expressive and moving portraits of long dead Romans, famous and not.
“Is there another Augustus?” asked Jean-Christophe Babin, chief executive of Bulgari, referring to the first Roman emperor.
Mr. Settis said the Torlonia had collected some 180 busts, making it one of the biggest collections of Roman portraiture in the world. Some are of “great quality,” he said.
Italian officials are now seeking a site where the collection can be permanently displayed, so that the Torlonia, like other noble families, will have a museum of their own.
“This is a story with a happy ending,” Mr. Settis said.
Elisabetta Povoledo has been writing about Italy for nearly three decades, and has been working for The Times and its affiliates since 1992.
=========================================================Long Unseen Trove of Ancient Treasures Goes on Show in Rome
After decades of false starts and setbacks, the public can finally take a look at the Torlonia Collection.
ROME — For much of the last century, the Torlonia Collection, the largest collection of classical sculpture still in private hands, remained hidden to the world.
A private museum founded in 1875 to showcase the antique marbles amassed by Prince Alessandro Torlonia and his father in the tradition of noble families — like the Borghese, Barberini or Doria Pamphilj — was originally open only to a select public, and, after a few decades, not at all. Most scholars knew the 620 works — an assortment of Greek and Roman statues, busts, vases, sarcophagi and reliefs dating from the 5th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. — only through the photographs in a catalog that was published in 1884.
Over time — including to safeguard the pieces during World War II — the collection was gradually moved into three large storerooms in Rome. As the years passed, the ancient treasures gathered layer upon layer of dust — and the mystique of the secreted collection grew
A breakthrough came in 2016, when the Italian government, the heirs of the Torlonia princes, and the foundation that manages the family’s artistic patrimony signed an accord to display the works. That exhibition — “The Torlonia Marbles, Collecting Masterpieces” — opened on Wednesday in a refurbished wing of the Capitoline Museums in Rome.
The show presents 92 works, which were restored for the occasion at the Torlonia Laboratory, a workshop set up on the site of the original museum in the Trastevere neighborhood. The restoration was sponsored by the luxury brand Bulgari.
“It’s an exhibit that writes a new chapter in the prestigious history of the collection,” Alessandro Poma Murialdo, the president of the Torlonia Foundation, said during a virtual news conference on Monday.
The Foundation was set up in 2013 by Prince Alessandro Torlonia, Mr. Poma Murialdo’s grandfather, who died in 2017. Mr. Poma Murialdo said in an interview that his grandfather would have been “very happy” to see the marbles at the Capitoline Museum. “He was very attached to the sculptures and had always wanted to resolve the question,” he said.
The deal with the Italian government stipulates that the collection will tour abroad after its Roman sojourn ends in June 2021. But discussions with institutions in Europe and the United States have been put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic, said Carlotta Loverini Chigi, the managing director of the Torlonia Foundation. “We have to see how the situation evolves in order to start discussions again,” she said.
“The international tour was for us an essential part of the accord from the start,” Mr. Poma Murialdo said, adding that in the 21st century it made little sense to confine the collection to Rome or Italy. “It’s important that the collection be shared internationally,” he said.
The show at the Capitoline opens with a head-spinning panoply of busts, as well as the collection’s only bronze — a first century A.D. statue of the Roman general Germanicus — set against a backdrop of Pompeian red, echoing the walls of the original museum.
It unfolds to recount the history of the collection, described as “a collection of collections,” assembled by Prince Giovanni Torlonia and his son Alessandro “for themselves, and for the glory of the family, said the archaeologist Salvatore Settis, one of the curators of the exhibition.
The collection includes works discovered during the 19th-century excavation activities in the many properties the Torlonia owned in and around Rome, along with pieces bought on the antiquarian market, both singularly and in bulk.
The collection swelled with three key acquisitions: a collection belonging to the most important sculpture restorer of late 18th century Rome; the works amassed by a 17th-century banker considered to be among the most refined art patrons of his time; and the 18th century Villa Albani, with a vast collection curated by the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who lived on the grounds.
These purchases introduced notable pieces, including a famous late first-century statue of a goat, whose modern head is attributed to the Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and a first-century-B.C. vase depicting the Labors of Hercules.
The collection also has much to reveal about how taste and restoration practices have changed over the past five centuries, said Carlo Gasparri, an archaeologist who has been working on the collection since 1976 and curated the exhibit with Mr. Settis.
The show ends with a statue of Hercules, stripped clean of its patinas to reveal what Mr. Gasparri described as “a puzzle” composed of “125 different pieces belonging to at least two different ancient statues” that were brought together in different eras. It had been coated and finished give the idea of a unitary sculpture, a typical process in the past.
“It’s not an ancient statue; it’s a modern creation of its time,” Mr. Gasparri said.
“We put this at the end to help people understand the problems” that archaeologists and restorers face, he added. “If you don’t clean a sculpture, it’s very difficult to know what you’re looking at,” he said.
The Torlonia Laboratory workshop has its work cut out for it, as restorers continue their work to bring to light all the remaining 528 works. And that was certain to offer scholars and restorers a wealth of information, he said.
“There’s much still to be discovered,” Mr. Gasparri said. “This is just a small taste.”
Elisabetta Povoledo has been writing about Italy for nearly three decades, and has been working for The Times and its affiliates since 1992.
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