How Victorian restorers faked the clothes that seemed to show Hadrian&

[Melvadius]

"How Victorian restorers faked the clothes that seemed to show Hadrian's softer side

 

A cherished image of the Roman emperor Hadrian as a gentle, philosophical man wearing the robes of a Greek citizen has been shattered with one blow of a conservator's chisel at the British Museum.

 

The head, with its neatly trimmed beard and fringe of exquisitely crimped curls, is certainly Hadrian but it seems the body it has been attached to for almost 150 years belongs to somebody else. The statue, a unique piece that has been cited in many biographies of Hadrian as proof of his love for Greek culture and customs, and illustrated countless times, is an ingenious Victorian confection."

 

cont'd at:

 

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/heritage/st...2284520,00.html

[DecimusCaesar]

A brilliant article. I was thinking about this same subject not long ago, about how much of our so-called ancient traditions and conceptions are heavily based on Enlightenment and Victorian period interpretations of the past. For instance we love to imagine Classical Rome as being full of men in togas among gleaming marble buildings. Most of those images come from 18th-19th century paintings rather than modern archaeology.

 

The faked clothes of Hadrian show how the mistaken Victorians re-interpreted the past to fit their own vision of Classical Rome. The thing is, we probably do the same today.

[SPQR]

Wow. And to think that the "Educated" Victorian era is thought to produce more accurate history than the "barbaric" Middle Ages in which countless (okay maybe not countless) manuscripts of Roman Literature was perserved. Another Stereotypre crushed.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Wow. And to think that the "Educated" Victorian era is thought to produce more accurate history than the "barbaric" Middle Ages in which countless (okay maybe not countless) manuscripts of Roman Literature was perserved. Another Stereotypre crushed.

 

The Middle Ages produced more accurate histories than those of the Victorian era? Can you give an example?

[caldrail]

Given Geoffery of Monmouths entertaining vision of british history written in the 12th century AD, I hardly think the medieval hostories are any more accurate, although I do note his contemporaries derided his efforts as 'fiction'. Then again, the middle ages were very pro-christian and there was a huge market for iconic fakery. I suspect the victorian era was no different regarding their love of the classics. Not so much interpretation, more like gullibility, as I note there were some gifted historians in the period as well as hopelessly misguided. Are things any different today? Not really. Smuggling antiquities is big business and most artifacts are made in back rooms locally.

[ASCLEPIADES]

A brilliant article. I was thinking about this same subject not long ago, about how much of our so-called ancient traditions and conceptions are heavily based on Enlightenment and Victorian period interpretations of the past. For instance we love to imagine Classical Rome as being full of men in togas among gleaming marble buildings. Most of those images come from 18th-19th century paintings rather than modern archaeology.

 

The faked clothes of Hadrian show how the mistaken Victorians re-interpreted the past to fit their own vision of Classical Rome. The thing is, we probably do the same today.

Salve, Amici. Gratiam habeo, Mel for such interesting article.

 

This statue (head) of Divus (deified) Hadrianus was from the temple to Apollo in Cyrene, a city which was one of the main focus of Jewish rebellion and repression previous to and during the Bar Kochba war; centuries later, his name in the Talmud was still followed with the curse "Crush his bones."

 

As there is additionally some evidence of christian persecution and martyrdom during his reign, one may reasonably suspect a religious background from the ravagers that crushed the statue with the head of a goddess.

 

Judging by other extant portraits, Hadrian probably wanted to be remembered as a warrior. The ravagers presumably wanted to erase his memory. It seems they were partially successful.

 

DC made a quite cleaver observation; if the message transmitted by a piece of sculpture can be so grossly and easily distorted, what can be expected from the ancient texts so frequently quoted by us, copied so many times?