Comment on Thorvaldsen's Small Silver Head - A Ruined Tondo Portrait

[The author’s note in the text] Culturally this Roman period had many “bourgeois” characteristics, expressed not least in an interest in the decorative. The wealthy Roman collected antiquities, as Thorvaldsen did, and often had a weakness for curiosities from Egypt. If he could not acquire an original object, he bought an imitation, often in miniature. Few periods have left so much bric-à-brac behind them.

Last updated 26.11.2015