Imperial Colors

A major new illustrated survey on two internationally significant Imperial Roman portrait busts. Imperial Colors focuses on the paired busts of Emperor Septimius Severus (r. 193-211) and his wife, Empress Julia Domna in the Eskenazi Museum of Art, two of the finest known examples of later Roman portrait sculpture. This book presents innovative multidisciplinary research that is accessible both to specialists and generalists. In addition to contextualising these portraits in the visual art and culture of the wider Roman empire, this publication will provide the first detailed and secure evidence for their original appearances. Highlights of this include the recently discovered vestiges of colorful paint, fresh insights into masterful marble polishes, and fascinating possibilities regarding their production and display in antiquity. These sculptures are also carefully constructed images, designed to promote political ideas. They represent continuity with older Imperial models but were updated to create a distinctive visual language for the new Imperial house. AUTHORS: Mark Abbe is associate professor of Art History, University of Georgia. Recent publications include "Faces in Living Color: Marble Portraits, Portrait Painting, and Individualization, c. 330-30 BC." in The Portrait Face. Understanding Realism and Verism in Greek and Roman Portraiture, (2021). Julie Van Voorhis is associate professor of Art History, Indiana University. She is the author of, most recently, Aphrodisias X: The Sculptor's Workshop (2018). SELLING POINTS: . Provides a rich artistic and historical context for two important imperial portraits and presents new research on the original appearance of these paired portraits . Offers a major - and fascinatingly new - study of both the practice and use of polychromy in ancient classical sculpture, and the wider context within in which such portraits busts were designed, created, and displayed, and the complex messages that lay behind the representations of their subjects . Of interest to ancient art scholars (re: new research) but written to include a broader audience as well: undergraduate university students and interested museum visitors, those with an interest in Ancient Roman art and history . Extensive exploration of these major sculptural art works, an approach that inspires close consideration of the portraits themselves but that also places them in a broader artistic, historical, and social context 136 colour ilustrations