A History of Roman Art. Steven L. Tuck

        Cultural Property Controversies

        Dating Dilemmas in Roman Art History

        Restoration Issues in Roman Art History

        The Role of Elites in Public Art and Architecture

        Italic versus Classical Styles and Forms I: Temples

        Italic versus Classical Styles and Forms II: Portraiture

        Female Portraiture and Embedded Values

        Romans Judging Roman Art: Values and Class

        Art, Context, and Social Status I: The Tomb of Vestorius Priscus

        Art, Context, and Social Status II: The Roman House

        Narrative Moment

        Suggestions for Further Reading

      This introduction is (as the Roman dictator Sulla called Roman government) a bit of “a two‐headed dog.” It is designed to introduce you, the reader, to both Roman art and the study of art history. In other words, to some of the overarching themes and forms of the art that follow as well as some of the ways that art historians operate and analyze that art. Let’s start with the controversies.

       provenance

      the place of origin or earliest known history of something. In art it can refer to the chain of ownership of a piece from origin to the present day.

CULTURAL PROPERTY CONTROVERSIES

      As I write this, and no doubt as you read it as well, one of the major controversies in art history and archaeology is over matters of cultural property. Museum professionals, academics, legal authorities, law enforcement officers, and diplomatic corps around the world have debated the question of who owns the past. Works that made their way into museum collections from the art market, such as the example below, legally purchased in an auction in New York at Sotheby’s or Christie’s and now in a small museum, are gaining increased scrutiny from foreign governments and art historians.

Some governments have called for the return of all such objects arguing that their provenance, the chain of ownership from the ground to the present day, cannot be proven and they might be the result of looting and illegal export. Art historians are drawn into this debate as they wrestle with issues of whether museum acquisition or even publication of these objects encourages the looting of archaeological sites by creating or encouraging the market in this material. Add to that the problem of fake or forged objects and it becomes very complicated and potentially controversial to handle objects that have recently come to light through the art market. Some have advocated for cut off dates that would prohibit the study and publication of recently acquired works while others have gone so far as to argue that professionals should only publish works with unbroken strings of legal ownership. Virtually all professionals, no matter where they stand in the debate, agree that we must be aware of and acknowledge issues of poor provenance. We should be aware that the lack of precise provenance information does limit what we can say about particular works. The example above could be from any one of a number of contexts: a tomb, a house, or a dedicatory statue in a public space such as a forum. Each one of those spaces would carry its own meaning and change how the work was viewed in antiquity and, given its provenance on the art market, we will never know that. But we will never know that for the vast majority of ancient art, even works that have eyewitness accounts of their excavation. Factor in the lack of documentation even for indisputably legitimate works such as the Portland Vase (Figure 5.29) and Ficoroni Cista (Figure 3.18) with long chains of ownership and it is clear that we cannot limit ourselves only to a discussion of works whose exact placement from