Skip to Content

A Portrait of Antinous, In Two Parts

Exhibition

Share


Ancient Roman

An exceptionally beautiful Greek youth, Antinous was a favorite of Roman Emperor Hadrian. Following the young man’s mysterious death by drowning in the Nile River, Antinous was proclaimed a god, and portraits of him appeared across the Roman Empire.

This focused exhibition unites two marbles portraying Antinous—which recent discoveries reveal were originally one. After years of careful study, an international collaboration among the Art Institute of Chicago, the Palazzo Altemps Museum in Rome, and the University of Chicago determined that the Art Institute’s fragment of a portrait of Antinous was originally the face of the Altemps’s bust. (That bust received a replacement face by the mid-18th century.)

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a reconstruction of the original statue combining the two parts, showing how the statue would have appeared in antiquity. Laser scanning and three-dimensional printing were used to produce a mold from which the plaster replica was created. This very 21st-century plaster cast, together with both ancient works—the Art Institute’s face and the Altemps’s bust—and additional information present new and intriguing stories about these sculptures and the fascinating subject they depict.

Installation Photos

Sponsors

Support for this exhibition is provided by Fred Eychaner and the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share