The author:
Elizabeth Bartman was President of the Archaeological Institute of America between 2011-2014 and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London, as well as a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Elizabeth is also a Paul Mellon Visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC and a Corresponding Member for the Deutsches Archäologisches Institute
The book:
This book investigates the important antiquities collection formed by Henry Blundell of Ince Blundell Hall outside Liverpool in the late eighteenth century. Consisting of more than 500 ancient marbles—the UK’s largest collection of Roman sculptures after that of the British Museum—the collection was assembled primarily in Italy during Blundell’s various “Grand Tour” visits. These are currently on display in the exhibition Pantheon:Roman Art Treasures from the Ince Blundell Collection.
The book will be the first to examine the ideal sculpture of Ince Blundell Hall in nearly a century. In so doing it aims to rehabilitate the reputations of a collector and collection that have largely been been ignored by both art-lovers and scholars in post-war Britain.
Introduction to the Collection.
Dr Gina Muskett, curated the Ince Blundell collection whilst Curator of Classical Antiquities at National Museums Liverpool.
We also have the conservator, Kieron Elliot, who worked on the collection coming along to talk about the sculptures. We often see the sculpture as perfect specimens, but if we look closely, they are frequently made up of many different (not always from that sculpture) pieces. Kieron will talk about this and how the restoration often took place historically.Kieron carried out the conservation work on the objects now on display in the Pantheon:Roman Art Treasures from the Ince Blundell Collection exhibition.
