“Funerary Relief with a Circus,” beginning of the 2nd century CE; Roman, Imperial period; marble; 22 1/2 x 41 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches; Vatican Museums, Vatican City 2026.11
Art meets antiquity with Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan, now on exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum through August 16th.
The museum’s very first exhibition dedicated specifically to Roman art, it features over 160 items—most of which have never left Italy—from the collections of the Vatican Museums, the Archaeological Park of Ostia Antica, the National Roman Museum, and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
The first non-Roman emperor, Trajan, was born in the present-day Andalusian province of Seville in southern Spain. The second of the “Five Good Emperors” of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty, he was a soldier and emperor who ruled from 98 to 117 CE.
Known as one of the fertile and prosperous eras of the empire, his watch saw military conquests and territorial expansion. He also reformed the Roman judiciary and created social programs to benefit its citizens.
The emperor also undertook numerous architectural projects, including the creation of public spaces for libraries, memorials, theaters, and amphitheaters. Trajan also undertook cultural initiatives like sculpture, painting, and craftsmanship to enhance the civic lives of Roman citizens.
Hannah Seagrave, associate curator of European art to 1800, explained how this exhibition, that celebrates the achievements of this age, came together.
“This exhibition was curated and brought together by Lucrezia Ungaro, the former director of the Imperial Forums Museum, in Rome. She also used her the relationships to negotiate getting these works on loan from Italian state institutions. She does freelance projects that focus on working with different museums in Italy. She is the one who is both a great Trajan expert and the person I’ve been working with this whole time to put the show together,” she says.
“It was a great privilege to work with Lucrezia, who is just a generous colleague. I have visited Italy multiple times, and we traveled together, visiting all the lending institutions.”
“There was a lot of working with the objects and conversing with curatorial and conservation colleagues there. I also had the incredible privilege of getting to work with colleagues at WashU, including Claire Lyman, who is a PhD candidate there. She has helped me with the show for the past year.”
Each gallery of the exhibition is organized by a theme, including sections on the women of Trajan Rome, daily life in the period, leisure activities of the era, and one about Trajan himself. Amongst the highlights on display are several frescoes from Pompeii, coins from the time, and statuary.
As a result, the objects shown here give visitors insight about political, economic, social, and political life in Trajan’s world at the turn of the second century CE.
Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan also engages visitors’ sense of sound via a musical soundscape created by Chris Cundy that brings the Roman baths to life through field recordings made at the Roman Baths in Bath, England.
Interspersed throughout the galleries are four scent stations. Each showcasing the smells of ancient Rome, the aromas range from rose to garum, a fermented fish sauce.
Because bringing Trajan’s column to SLAM would be problematic, the exhibition has the next best thing: a life-size 3D-printed scene from Trajan’s Column—a triumphal pillar, colored in bronze, with a spiraling narrative frieze that remains one of the greatest achievements of Roman art.
For Segrave and her team, mounting SLAM’s first exhibition devoted to Roman art presented several obstacles.
“With an exhibition of this size, scope, and variety, there always are lots of challenges. There are over 160 objects in the show, which is a lot, and those range from very small coins to monumental sculptures, mosaics, and frescoes, all of which are different sizes.”
“So, the first hurdle was the shipping of these incredible works that are old and fragile and then mounting them safely. That was always a challenge. There were also the issues of working across two states and two continents,” she says.
“There was an earlier version of this exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. So, we were collaborating with them and all the lenders in Italy. This is certainly an exhibition about partnering and collaborating to wrangle all these objects and put them together for our audiences.”
The curator also commented on why having a show dedicated to this era, and Trajan’s reign in particular, is special.
“There have been shows on Trajan in Italy and in Europe, where the general knowledge and familiarity with the history and figures of the Roman Empire are much stronger because they are living in the history and the ruins of that moment. But in the U.S., there is less familiarity with many specifics of the Roman Empire.”
“Oftentimes, when we think of the Roman Empire, we are thinking of this moment and of Trajan. This is the moment of the empire’s greatest territorial expansion as well as its greatest time of financial prosperity.”
Despite all her work and research, Segrave’s passion, excitement and quest for knowledge drive Ancient Splendor, making the exhibition an engaging experience.
“What’s been fun about this project for me is really getting to both think about how Trajan and the people around him influenced all kinds of aspects of the Roman Empire, from daily life to the visual arts, and how life felt, and what it looked like in Rome at the turn of the second century.”
She also addressed how this exhibition demonstrates Trajan’s leadership acumen.
“What is different about Trajan is that, compared to other emperors, he seemed to think about how to beautify Rome for its people and understood that to be successful he needed to take care of them as well. I think that’s a product of the kind of leader that he was, as well as the people advising him, such as his wife, Plotina, and his older sister, Marciana.”
“He also had a respectful relationship with the Senate. He had a civic-minded influence where the money from the wars the empire was involved in was going into making life better for people in Rome.”
Serving as both a starting and ending point for the exhibition is the Statue of Trajan from Minturno, a monumental representation of the emperor. It serves as the perfect marker for exploring the art, architecture, and culture of the age.
As depicted in its galleries, the spaces in Trajan’s Rome, from homes to forums, was designed to give Romans from many classes a feeling of comfort and opulence.
When touring the exhibition, one doesn’t need to know much about Rome to grasp the importance of the era. Trajan’s fingerprints are everywhere. From domestic dwellings to public works projects and conquered lands, the prolific leader’s achievements and the time he ruled in are brought to life in this exciting and informative exhibition.
With the exhibition now open to the public, Segrave hopes the exhibition helps visitors see Ancient Rome’s relevance to our lives today.
“I hope that the show itself, the way we present the objects, and the exhibition space they pass through, enhance this experience. I hope it makes them look at the ancient Roman world differently and see it as not so geographically and temporally distant from us.
“Especially because so many of the ways that these people lived their lives, constructed their identities, lived with their families, and experienced the world around them are similar to what we do today. I also hope that our visitors find their own personal histories, stories, and interests reflected in this artwork from so long ago.”
In addition to displaying art and artifacts, Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan, the St. Louis Art Museum has created a series of tours, lectures, and programming for educators, children, and art lovers of all ages to accompany the exhibition.
For more information on Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan visit www.slam.org. | Rob Levy
