Elegant as a Roman Palace
June 2007
The new galleries are supplemented by a grand expansion of the Met’s online timeline of art history; guides for families and educators; 100 new messages on the Met’s audio guide; a new luxury retail space related to the collection of works from the archaic and classical periods; and a 3,400-work mezzanine-level study collection with six wall-mounted computer touch screens offering a wealth of information.
Carlos Picón, curator-in-charge of Greek and Roman Art, who joined the Met in 1990, says order has finally been brought to the Met’s collection, considered among the finest in the world. “This is the first time since 1949 that you can finally see the entire sweep of ancient Greek to the end of the Roman empire in three city blocks. What we had before had no rhyme or reason: Roman in one gallery, pots here, bronzes there. Now you have a dialogue showing chronologically, thematically, stylistically what happened during this magnificent time in human history.”
Perhaps Picón’s most celebrated acquisition is the over-lifesized Hope Dionysus, which had been packed away for more than five years. Picón bought it at auction in 1990 for $220,000, his first purchase for the museum. This marble, named for the prominent collector Thomas Hope who acquired it in 1796 and once owned by the great grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Francis Howard, is an adaptation dating to approximately 27 B.C.-68 A.D. of a fourth century B.C. Greek statue of Dionysus. The god of wine and divine intoxication wears his identifying panther skin, adorned with animal heads, over a short tunic—a chiton—and high-laced sandals. Tucked under his arm is a smaller female figure, whose archaistic pose and dress imitate those of Greek statues carved two centuries earlier.
Emily Sachar is a graduate student in art history at the City University of New York and is the author of Shut Up and Let the Lady Teach (Simon & Schuster).
Carlos Picón, curator-in-charge of Greek and Roman Art, who joined the Met in 1990, says order has finally been brought to the Met’s collection, considered among the finest in the world. “This is the first time since 1949 that you can finally see the entire sweep of ancient Greek to the end of the Roman empire in three city blocks. What we had before had no rhyme or reason: Roman in one gallery, pots here, bronzes there. Now you have a dialogue showing chronologically, thematically, stylistically what happened during this magnificent time in human history.”
Perhaps Picón’s most celebrated acquisition is the over-lifesized Hope Dionysus, which had been packed away for more than five years. Picón bought it at auction in 1990 for $220,000, his first purchase for the museum. This marble, named for the prominent collector Thomas Hope who acquired it in 1796 and once owned by the great grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Francis Howard, is an adaptation dating to approximately 27 B.C.-68 A.D. of a fourth century B.C. Greek statue of Dionysus. The god of wine and divine intoxication wears his identifying panther skin, adorned with animal heads, over a short tunic—a chiton—and high-laced sandals. Tucked under his arm is a smaller female figure, whose archaistic pose and dress imitate those of Greek statues carved two centuries earlier.
Emily Sachar is a graduate student in art history at the City University of New York and is the author of Shut Up and Let the Lady Teach (Simon & Schuster).
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