HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Antioch Mosaics

Kevin Tervala, Eddie C. And C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art

Reception 1:00 - 1:30 pm 

Situated near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in present-day Türkiye, the ancient cities of Antioch and Daphne were thriving cultural, business, and political centers between the 1st and 6th centuries. Since the 1940s, fragments of floor mosaics from the homes of cosmopolitan elites of those metropolitan locales have adorned the walls of the Baltimore Museum of Art’s colloquially named Antioch Court. And until the summer of 2022, very little had changed in how the Museum has explained these mosaics to visitors.

As curator Dr. Kevin Tervala, Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator, explained, 20th century art history framed these ancient floor mosaics as stand-ins for Roman painting. Therefore, the mosaics are hung on the walls in the BMA’s Antioch Court like paintings and were titled similarly, eg. The Striding Lion. But far more problematically, the floor mosaics were serving as a stand-in for all of Roman antiquity. Join ASG while Dr. Tervala speaks about new research and interpretation of the mosaics and how they interact within the Baltimore Museum of Art’s collection.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)