Rarely seen collection of Roman sculpture will visit Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell Art Museum will host its first exhibition of ancient Roman sculpture in its 52-year history. And the exhibit is a really big catch.

“Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection” includes 58 works from the largest private collection of Roman sculpture in the world. It premieres at the Art Institute of Chicago before stopping at the museum from Sept. 14-Jan. 25, 2026, and ending its North American tour at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Franco-Italian banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia and his son Alessandro began collecting Roman sculpture beginning in the 19th century. The collection grew and stayed in the family. They are preserved by the Torlonia Foundation, which also oversees the museum established in 1876. The museum closed during World War II, leaving the sculptures hidden from the public, and were not seen until 2020 at the at the Musei Capitolini in Rome.

Among the 58 works are 24 newly restored and on display for the first time in a century. The collection spans from approximately the fifth century BCE to the early fourth century CE.

“The Foundation is excited to be sharing the Torlonia Collection with audiences in North America for the first time,” said Alessandro Poma Murialdo, president of the Torlonia Foundation. “This exceptional group of ancient sculptures is a testament to the enduring cultural legacy of ancient Rome, as well as the vision and passion of multiple generations of the Torlonia Family.”

Organized into sections including portraits, excavations, restorations, the ethereal, royalty and a particularly macabre niche part of their collection, funerary monuments. They represent the range of the collection, how they were obtained (primarily excavation and acquisition) and how even the most ancient of works can be preserved. It’s also clear the family is loaded. While we think of Pompeii and Rome, a handful of royals and emperors and ancient myths, the tour adds to our understanding by giving context to kings’ conquests (large celebratory sculptures), how gender and sex were portrayed and how they were revered in the afterlife.

“It has been an honor to curate the first-ever North American touring presentation of this historic collection,” said show curator Lisa Çakmak who holds the Mary and Michael Jaharis Chair and serves as curator of the Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium at the Art Institute of Chicago. “We are thrilled to introduce these exceptional yet little-known sculptures to our visitors, which will offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only view these rarely seen objects but also to explore the stories of both their ancient pasts and modern afterlives.”

Eric Lee, director of the Kimbell, was elated.

“The opportunity to bring large-scale works of ancient Roman sculpture to the American public is extremely rare, and we at the Kimbell are grateful to the Torlonia Foundation for creating this once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said in a statement. “This is all the more exciting because the legendary Torlonia Collection went unseen since the closing of the Torlonia Museum in the wake of World War II.”

This story was originally published December 13, 2024 at 2:08 PM.