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Colourful Roman Sculpture – by Ellie Nicklin, Research Scholar

York Museums Trust Research Scholar Ellie Nicklin discusses Roman Polychrome Sculpture she has encountered working at the Yorkshire Museum.

When asked to imagine a Roman sculpture, it is natural to think of white marble statues that we see in museums today. Yet these blanched sculptures would seem alien to the Romans, who used bright colours to add interest and detail to their work. Our idea of Roman sculpture was almost totally invented by Victorian and Renaissance Artists, who removed evidence that Antique sculptures were originally painted in gaudy colours.

Scholars of classical sculpture are now working against the Victorian’s practises of erasing the colour from statues by attempting to find traces of the original paint. There have been many successful attempts to ‘colour in’ statues, including the ‘Treu Head’ and ‘Augustus of Primaporta’ held in the British Museum and Vatican Museums respectively.

It is almost certain that the sculptural objects within the Yorkshire Museum’s Roman Collection would have been painted originally. Therefore I was tasked to find any remaining traces of polychromy (the inclusion of multiple colours) surviving on the statues.

Traces of paint are likely to be found in small crevices, missed in previous cleaning projects. I closely examined the clothing’s folds and the edges of figures very closely by eye, aided by eyeglasses and torches which provided raking light. It was obvious that there were many different types of paint, which had been applied, intentionally and accidentally since the artefacts were put on display.

Many of the inscriptions in the museum’s collection have been traced in red paint at some point since they were discovered in the 18th and 19th Centuries, with the intention of making the inscriptions clearer to read. On Flavia Augustina’s tombstone there are coloured marks that are not original, and probably caused accidentally by crayons or paint.

The original paint is likely to be present in between the grains of the gritstone, whereas modern paint is expected to be on top of the grains. Samples of original paint would be small, and contained in a unified area. The artefacts were also examined under a UV light attempting to reveal samples of paint invisible to the naked eye.

Unfortunately after close inspection none of the tombstones revealed traces of paint. Although it is almost certain they would have been painted originally like the Tombstone of Caecilius Avitus held in the Grosvenor Museum.

On an altar dedicated to the Mother Goddesses the original Roman paint can still be seen clearly today, even with the naked eye. The altar’s dedication inscription to the Matres was originally surrounded by a red painted frame.

The inscription’s letters have been picked out in red paint from the nineteenth century, however upon the large frame’s lower section there are large stretches of red paint suggesting the whole frame was originally coloured in red, asking the viewer to focus on the altar’s inscription.

On the left and right side of the altar, red and ochre paint has been used to pick out different patterns of decorative fluting. To the left, the paint aids the viewer’s understanding of the pattern as the red rounded staffs are contrasted against an ochre background. On the right, three staffs are painted in red projecting from the bottom of the panel.

However the staffs at either end do not appear to have been painted and two infilled flutes are painted in ochre paint.

It can be said that the same effect is achieved on each side, in which certain faux-architectural features have been picked out. However the mash of different forms and colours on the right side of the altar suggest a confused or unplanned decoration.

With this knowledge of Roman sculpture we are encouraged to look in artefacts’ crevices to discover a remainder of their original vivid appearance. There are more traces of colour still to be found on the Roman collections in the Yorkshire Museum; I encourage everyone to look closely because you never know what you might find.

 

For more information consult:

The British Museum – Technical Research Bulletin
The Polychromy of Greek and Roman Art; An Investigation of Museum Practices (CUNY)
Gods in Colour: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity
Tracking Colour: Polychromy of the Ancient World