Ancient colors revived at the Met

Ancient, Modern(ish), Museums

A new exhibition about the history of polychromy on Greek and Roman sculpture opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Tuesday. Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color looks at newly-discovered evidence of polychromy on artworks in the Met’s own collection and reconstructions of how the colorful original may have looked based on the new data. Reconstructions of major works from other collections — for example the Riace bronzes and the Boxer at Rest — are also displayed in the exhibition.

The exhibition features a series of reconstructions of ancient sculptures in color by Prof. Dr. V. Brinkmann, Head of the Department of Antiquity at the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection, and Dr. U. Koch-Brinkmann, and introduces a new reconstruction of The Met’s Archaic-period Sphinx finial, created by The Liebieghaus team in collaboration with The Met. Presented alongside original Greek and Roman works representing similar subjects, the reconstructions are the result of a wide array of analytical investigations, including 3D imaging, and art historical research. Polychromy is a significant area of study for The Met, and the Museum has a long history of investigating, preserving, and presenting manifestations of original color on ancient statuary.  

Displayed throughout the Museum’s Greek and Roman galleries, the exhibition explores four main themes: the discovery and identification of color and other surface treatments on ancient works of art; the reconstruction and interpretation of polychromy on ancient Greek and Roman sculpture; the role of polychromy in conveying meaning within Greek and Roman contexts; and the reception of polychromy in later periods.

Chroma emphasizes the extensive presence and role of polychromy in ancient Mediterranean sculpture, both broadly and across media, geographies, and time periods, from Cycladic idols of the third millennium B.C. to Imperial Roman portraiture of the second century, as witnessed throughout the Museum’s collection and illustrated with 40 artworks in the permanent galleries on the first floor of the Museum. Fourteen reconstructions of Greek and Roman sculpture by Dr. Brinkmann and his team highlight advanced scientific techniques used to identify original surface treatments. These full-size physical reconstructions will be juxtaposed with comparable original works of art throughout The Met’s Greek and Roman Art Galleries, provoking visitors to rethink how the Greek and Roman sculptures originally looked in antiquity.

One of the focal artworks in the exhibition is a marble funerary stele from the Archaic period (ca. 530 B.C.) featuring the relief of a youth and topped by a finial in the form of a sphinx. The sphinx retains unusually abundant remnants of red, black and blue paint, and Brinkmann’s team studied it with multi-spectral imaging, photographic techniques and other scientific analyses to reconstruct the original color almost completely. An Augmented Reality app has been created for visitors with smartphones to recreate the sphinx finial in full color while they observe the sphinx as it is today.

The show also ties in artifacts that attest to the ancient love of bright color, like depictions on Greek terracotta vases of polychrome sculpture, a scene of an artist with a brush painting a sculpture carved into an intaglio gemstone, even the beautifully frescoed walls of a bedroom from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale near Pompeii that depict a vividly painted architectural landscape.

This video looks at how Brinkmann and Koch-Brinkmann studied the originals to create the color reconstructions. It’s also very cool to see how the traces of ancient paint appear on the sphinx finial under different lighting conditions.

This video is a digital reconstruction of polychromy built up on the sculpture of a head, likely of Athena. It gives an all-too-brief glimpse into how Egyptian blue pigment was used in the creation of realistic skin tones.

Viking gold ring found in estate auction box lot

Medieval, Treasures

Mari Ingelin of Alver, Norway, hit the history buff’s jackpot when she found a gold ring from the Viking era in a box lot of cheap jewelry she’d bought at an online auction. The auction was an estate sale with lots of mixed objects packed into banana boxes. Ingelin bought the banana box containing some mall jewelry and trinkets. She was initially only interested in one of the items, but had to buy the whole box to get it. When sifting through her haul, the bright shine of yellow gold caught her eye.

The ring stood out from the other pieces. It was heavy and was more roughly made than the modern pieces. She consulted with her father-in-law and he suggested it might be really old, like Viking old. That’s when she contacted the Vestland County officials and alerted them to the find. County archaeologist Sigrun Wølstad examined the ring and confirmed that it was indeed a Viking artifact.

It has a twisted band with a thick, smooth strand entwined with a thin granulated one. It weighs 10.98 grams and is so wide in diameter it was almost certainly a man’s ring.

Unn Pedersen is an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Oslo. She studies artefacts from the Viking Age, and one of her fields of research is so-called non-ferrous metalworking – meaning for instance copper, silver, and gold.

“This is a really exciting find,” Pedersen says to sciencenorway.no on the phone from her summer cabin. “It is extremely rare to find such a gold ring from the Scandinavian Viking Age,” she says.

Pedersen confirms that the ring is a typical Viking Age ring.

“We have some very close parallels to it. There are some in silver, and some in gold that have this exact same shape,” she says.

Based on the photo, Pedersen also thinks the ring looks a little worn. It looks as though it has been used a lot. And it was most likely worn by a powerful Viking chief.

“Gold was rare during the Viking Age, there wasn’t a big supply of it anymore. So this would have been reserved for the richest and most powerful people in society,” she says.

There is no information about where the ring may have come from given its discovery in a sale bin. This type of ring has been found before in other parts of Scandinavia, usually in funerary contexts, as well as in Norway, but they are rare and there is very little known about their origins. The only way to find out more about this one is to take a sample of the gold and do metallurgic analysis, but of course that would damage the ring and these days conservators are reluctant to engage in invasive practices unless strictly necessary.

All archaeological objects in Norway predating 1537 are automatically granted protected status. Normally, the National Heritage Board allocates such finds to a local museum near where they were discovered, but since the find site is unknown, the Viking ring has been allocated to the University Museum of Bergen where it will go on display later this year.

16th c. prayer nut sells for six times estimate

Renaissance

One of the rare 16th century miniature boxwood carved prayer beads that was displayed at the groundbreaking 2016 traveling exhibition Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures sold for six times its presale estimate at a Sotheby’s London auction on Tuesday. The intricately-carved masterpiece was estimated to sell for £60,000 – 80,000 (S72,000 – 96,000), but bidding quickly blew past those figures and the prayer bead ultimately sold for £604,800 ($726,000).

The polyptych prayer nut was carved in the northern Netherlands in the first quarter of the 16th century. It is attributed to the workshop of Adam Dircksz and is a particularly splendid example of a very short-lived art form. Barely more than two inches in diameter when closed, it is a hinged sphere carved from a single piece of boxwood. The exterior is decorated with layered open tracery. When open, the two interior hemispheres are deeply carved with scenes crammed full of people in dynamic postures. The top register depicts the Crucifixion of Christ; the bottom half depicts Christ’s trial before Pontius Pilate with tiny scenes of the Flagellation and Christ Bound in the background of the deep relief.

Two semi-circular wings close over the top half. They are carved in low relief on both sides. The exterior of the wings features a scene of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss. The interior of the wing shows Christ carrying the cross, the Lamentation and the Entombment.

This was a pater noster prayer bead. The owner would recite the Our Father while touching the complex openwork tracery to aid in focus, then open up the hemispheres to meditate on the scriptural passages and hymns carved around the edges and the devotional scenes on the interior. It was likely worn on a belt or a large rosary.

Of the 60 or so surviving prayer nuts, only 11 of them have interior wings, and they are in museums, including one in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is almost identical in motif and design. It too is carved with a scene of the Crucifixion in the top half of the bead and Jesus before Pilate in the bottom half. The one that just sold came from a German private collection. They basically never come up for auction, making this one extra covetable and driving up the price.

4th c. purple and gold fabric revealed

Ancient

The textile fragments woven with gold threads recovered from the paleochristian necropolis in Autun, France, have been meticulously cleaned to reveal new details about the pattern, weave and materials.

Fragments of gold threads and purple dye that had leached into the sediment were discovered in tombs 43 and 45 of the necropolis in 2020. Tomb 47 also contained gold threads visible in the half-foot of soil inside the lead sarcophagus. They were too fragile to excavate in situ, so archaeologists removed four large clods of soil for excavation and examination in laboratory conditions.

The gold textiles, especially the ones in Tomb 47, required long and expensive restoration. Private sponsorship funded an in-depth cleaning of one of the four clods of Tomb 47. After two years, the job is not over — the full shape and outline of the fabric has yet to emerge — but the cleaning so far has revealed herringbone and floral weaving patterns. There are no yokes or seams found thus far. It appears this was a large single section of fabric, likely a shroud used to wrap the body of the deceased for burial.

Weaving this fabric required a high level of technical mastery. The gold threads are actually tiny strips of gold wound around a vegetable fiber thread. The fiber core conferred elasticity to the gold metal strips spiraled around it, making it possible for the brittle metal to be woven instead of breaking apart. There are 100 gold threads per square centimeter (1.55 square inches), so imagine the kind of time and skill it must have taken to wrap so much gold around so many fibers.

The 2020 excavation revealed other unprecedented finds, including a set of 4th century carved amber pins unique on the archaeological record, and the exceptionally rare diatretic glass vase that is one of only 10 known in the world and the only one of them ever discovered in France. The diatretic glass vase and a varied spread of archaeological treasures from Autun’s early days as the capital of the Gallic Aedui people to the founding of the Roman city of Augustodunum by order of Augustus, the rise of Christianity in the 3rd century, the post-Roman decline and contraction through its revival as an urban and religious center in the Middle Ages.

Helmet from 7th c. B.C. chariot burial restored

Ancient

The bronze helmet found in the 7th century B.C. burial of an elite Piceni warrior in Corinaldo, Le Marche, central Italy, has been fully restored and is almost complete with just a few missing fragments.

The tomb was discovered in a 2018 excavation that revealed a necropolis of the Italic Piceni Culture. At least three large circular ring fitches dating to between the 6th and 8th centuries B.C. were unearthed. A pit inside the central ring ditch was filled to capacity with nearly 100 grave goods, including more than 100 ceramic vessels, an iron two-wheeled chariot, feasting andirons and skewers, bronze greaves and a bronze helmet. While no human remains had survived, the richness and content of the funerary furnishings mark it as the grave of a member of the Piceni aristocratic elite from the 7th century B.C.

One of the most significant objects was a bronze helmet. It was in pieces and squashed when it was discovered, requiring years of meticulous conservation. When a selection of 12 representative objects went on display in Corinaldo’s public art gallery in 2021, the helmet was still very much a work in progress. Only a few of the larger pieces were exhibited, mounted over a form to convey the helmet’s cap shape.

Professional restorers, professors and students of the University of Bologna’s conservation and restoration of cultural heritage graduate program in Ravenna collaborated to piece the rest of the helmet back together. It is a composite cap of the Fabriano variant composed of three laminae (bronze sheets) riveted together to form a base (brim and collar), the curved cap over the head and a central band running front to back. Two bronze points at the apex of the helmet once anchored a crest. The helmet was likely of local production, but made by Greek or Etruscan artisans who served the Piceni elite.

Due to public demand and to give the newly-restored helmet its due, the exhibition Rediscovered Treasure: The Prince of Corinaldo has been extended a year and will open to the public through January 31st, 2023.