Right now, at the Kimball Museum of Art in Fort Worth, there’s a marvelous exhibit of marble sculptures from Rome’s Torlonia Collection.The museum describes the Torlonia as “the most important private collection of Roman sculptures in the world,” with 620 marble and alabaster pieces in a wide array of styles and subjects. For the first time, 58 pieces from the collection are coming to the western hemisphere.Fort Worth, Texas is one of only three stops.
The collection began to be assembled in the early 1800s by an Italian nobleman named Giovanni Torlonia.His son Alessandro carried the project forward, gathering sculptures in part from excavations carried out on the family’s estates.In 1875, Alessandro opened a private museum to showcase the works, some of which go back to the 5th century BC.In the wake of World War II, the museum closed, and the collection went unseen for decades.
Before the exhibit arrived in Fort Worth it was hosted by the Art Institute of Chicago.One of the curators there said the show is “intended to be for non-specialists,” that is, people who “might not know much about the ancient world,” but might be interested in seeing what Emperor Marcus Aurelius actually looked like.
But wait, the Kimball isn’t done.Earlier this year one of the museum’s favorite paintings, Caravaggio’s The Cardsharps, spent a few months in Rome as part of a wonderful exhibit at place called the Palazzo Barbarini.Now, in something of a nice reciprocal action, one of the Caravaggio’s whose permanent home is there, is visiting here.His stunning Judith Beheading Holofernes “ranks among the artist’s most groundbreaking masterpieces for its bold realism and the theatrical staging.”At almost 6 and a half feet wide and almost five feet high it’s a sizeable work.(By contrast, The Cardsharps is 3 feet by just over four feet)
Caravaggio painted this work sometime between 1598 and 1602.It’s startlingly violent, frankly, and will likely surprise some people who go see it.Abundantly clear is the artist’s mastery of contrasting areas of light and dark which heightens the drama in the piece.It’s easily one of his most captivating and dramatic works.
In bringing such masterworks to Fort Worth, the Kimball Museum is one of the things that Texas can actually be proud of.
