Antinous: the face of the Antique

Description

“There are today more portraits of that youth than of any man whatsoever...”

- Marguerite Yourcenar, 1951

The Emperor Hadrian’s young lover was Antinous, a beautiful youth who drowned mysteriously in the Nile before his 20th birthday. The Emperor, in his grief, commissioned busts and statues of his beloved, and as the cult of Antinous spread throughout the Roman Empire, many more were erected by his subjects.

Antinous: the face of the Antique, the first exhibition dedicated to antique sculpture to be held at the Institute, provides a very human subject with whom to explore issues of representation, recognition and restoration.

As well as extensive exhibition photography and portraits of Antinous, this catalogue contains:

Extract from Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite Yourcenar

Looking for Antinous
Introduction by Penelope Curtis (Curator of the Henry Moore Institute)

Biography as Fantasy, History as Image
Caroline Vout (Department of Classics at Nottingham University)

Catalogue of Exhibits
With descriptions by Caroline Vout

Extract from Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece
John Addington Symonds