Museum Lecture: Savannah Marquardt

“Afterlives of South Italian Vase Painting: Restoration and Fabrication of Ancient Art in Eighteenth-Century Naples”

When the magnificent red-figure vases now recognized as “Ancient Greek” first began to be systematically removed from graves in Southern Italy in the eighteenth-century, they captivated antiquarian audiences. Wealthy collectors were struck by the desire to own—and to improve—ancient history. How were these red-figure vases “restored,” and what were the stakes of this restoration? Considering these questions reveals that the afterlife of antiquity in the eighteenth century was predicated on remarkably modern concerns about who is considered capable of making great art and what the role of “classical civilization” is in the production of modern identities.