September 14, 2025–January 25, 2026
Kimbell Art Museum
The Kimbell Art Museum presents Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection from September 14, 2025, through January 25, 2026, in the Renzo Piano Pavilion. This exhibition brings to North America for the first time 58 rarely seen masterpieces from the world’s most important private collection of Roman sculpture.
Established during the 19th century by Franco-Italian banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia (1754–1829) and his son Prince Alessandro (1800–1886), the Torlonia Collection was handed down over generations, eventually growing into the largest private collection of ancient Roman sculptures. This collection was assembled through acquisitions from prominent collections of Roman nobility and from excavations on the family’s own estates throughout Italy. The sculptures remained largely unseen by the public until an exhibition at Rome’s Musei Capitolini in 2020, and, more recently, an exhibition that drew unprecedented audiences at the Louvre in Paris.
Statue of Cupid and Psyche (detail), Roman, Imperial Period (second half of 2nd century AD), marble. Torlonia Collection, Rome. © Fondazione Torlonia. Photo by Lorenzo De Masi
The works on view at the Kimbell were made between the late fifth century BC and the early fourth century AD, with most dating to the High Imperial period (first–second centuries AD). Visitors will see examples of the most emblematic genres of ancient marble sculpture, including large-scale figures of gods, goddesses, and mythic heroes, vivid portraits of emperors and their families, and magnificent funerary monuments.
The exhibition is organized thematically into six sections. Visitors will first encounter three Icons of the Torlonia Collection, including the mid-first century BC Portrait of a Young Woman, known as the Maiden of Vulci. This is among the earlier and best-known works in the Torlonia Collection.
Portrait of a Man, known as the Old Man of Otricoli, Roman, late Republican Period (1st century BC), marble. Torlonia Collection, Rome. © Fondazione Torlonia. Photo by Lorenzo De Masi
Next, Ideal Bodies and Model Behavior introduces visitors to depictions of myriad deities from the broader Roman world. This section illustrates how, as it expanded, the Roman Empire increasingly embraced aspects of Greek culture, both in its mythology and its visual language, cementing a shared Greco-Roman cultural heritage. The Statue of a Goddess, known as the Hestia Giustiniani is one of the most important works in the collection and is the largest and most intact sculpture of its type.
Strategies of Succession displays second-century AD emperors and their imperial families, including a remarkable selection of female portraits. These stunningly realistic portrait sculptures, the likes of which would have permeated public and private spaces in the ancient world, functioned much as mass media does today.
Restoration and Reconstruction spotlights sculptures that have been altered over the centuries—sometimes into nearly new works altogether—reflecting how collectors from the Renaissance through the 19th century preferred unfragmented objects to decorate their villas and estates.
As one of the largest landowners in 19th-century Rome, Prince Alessandro Torlonia hired archaeologists to excavate some of his own estates, notably a tract along the Via Appia Antica, which was a major ancient thoroughfare near Rome, and a property at Portus, once ancient Rome’s main harbor. Torlonia Excavations displays remarkable discoveries from these excavations, including the only Greek sculpture in the exhibition and the earliest work in the entire Torlonia Collection.
A room in Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection
Myth and Marble closes with Death and Remembrance, reflecting a major strength of the Torlonia Collection: funerary monuments. These superb carvings underscore the longstanding Roman tradition of commemorating the dead and visually memorializing their likenesses and personal identities in marble, to be publicly displayed and visited by generations of descendants.
“The opportunity to bring large-scale works of ancient Roman sculpture to the American public is extremely rare, and we at the Kimbell are grateful to Fondazione Torlonia for creating this once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Eric Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “This is the first exhibition of ancient Roman sculpture in the Kimbell’s fifty-three-year history and is all the more exciting because the legendary Torlonia Collection has been largely unseen for the last seventy years.”
For more information, including museum hours and admission, visit kimbellart.org.
Feature and images c/o Kimbell Art Museum
