THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: GALLERIA 162: Ancient Roman Sculpture Court

Speranza

The Leon Levy and Shelby White Court evokes the grandeur that was Rome and provides a suitable setting for the sculptures that were created under Roman patronage, inspired by models from both Classical Greece and the Hellenistic kingdoms.
The arts of South Italy and Ptolemaic Egypt provide the opulent background for the development of Roman taste and luxury. Funerary monuments and grave gifts give a poignant insight into personal lives that draw a different picture of Rome as a place of monumental architecture, sumptuously decorated with marble and decked out with an array of statuary. The statues, in bronze and marble, represented gods, personifications, historical figures, and real people. Roman copies and adaptations of earlier lost Greek works survived to stimulate the classical revival that arose throughout Europe in the eighteenth century.