Rome
During the temporary closure of the Louvre, the Roman rooms are moving to the Louvre-Lens!
This exhibition at the Louvre-Lens offers a vast retrospective of the Roman civilization, from its legendary founding in 753 BC to the fall of the empire in AD 476.
It is an invitation to discover Roman art and civilization through the major themes that shaped Rome, contributed to its greatness and make it so fascinating. It features the greatest masterpieces from the Roman collections of the Musée du Louvre, recounting the history of Rome, its empire and its art. The Louvre is one of the few museums outside Italy to possess a collection of antiquities that provides such a broad overview of Roman art.
Roman civilization found expression in all of the art forms of the time and covered a vast area, extending as far as the present-day Hauts-de-France region, which was part of Gallica Belgica during Antiquity. Its artistic models were widely disseminated and intermingled with other traditions in numerous regions. In this open society, art was the product of both official commissions and private initiatives. This artistic heterogeneity reflected the great social, cultural and geographical diversity of the empire, which extended from western Europe to the Near East, and whose history spanned thirteen centuries.
Roman art was all-embracing, ranging from works of the intellect to work in the fields, and from theatrical entertainments, the circus and hunting to the pleasures of the banquet, the baths, personal hygiene and beauty and love. The same attention to detail was paid to the official and private realms, to imperial pomp and the lives of ordinary people.
The exhibition brings together many materials and techniques, alternating large-format works with more modest objects. It is organised around major themes and includes a chronology of this fascinating civilization.
Curators :
Cécile Giroire, director of the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre,
and Martin Szewczyk, heritage curator.
The Fondation Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe is the principal partner of the exhibition.
In partnership with ARGILE, couleurs de terre.
