Why was the Roman portrait repatriated to Germany (and not to Italy)?

Since the exhibition A Roman Portrait from Germany in Texas opened at the San Antonio Museum of Art in May 2022, several people have raised an important question: “If the bust found at Goodwill in Austin is Roman, why isn’t it being repatriated to Italy? Was it looted from Italy by Ludwig I of Bavaria?” This question shows an awareness of the historical looting of antiquities and other cultural heritage in the nineteenth century.

The answer has two main parts. First, it’s important to recognize that the Roman empire in the first century BC and first century AD encompassed a large territory, including parts of many modern countries outside of Italy, such as Turkey, Spain, Egypt, Greece, and Tunisia. Roman artifacts have been found in all these places and more. Without information about where a Roman sculpture was excavated, Italy is just one of the possibilities.

It’s possible, nevertheless, that this particular portrait originated in Italy. That brings us to the second part of the answer. Illicit cultural heritage looting definitely did take place in the 1800s, with stolen artworks added to a number of European collections, including some in Germany. There was, however, also a legitimate European art and antiquities market during that period. King Ludwig I of Bavaria was a great admirer of Italian and ancient Roman art, and he made many purchases on the art market, often in Italy itself. Two other artworks from his collection are currently on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art in the exhibition Roman Landscapes: Visions of Nature and Myth from Rome and Pompeii. One was purchased in Rome and the other in Paris, where it was sold by a member of an Italian family that had owned it for a long time.

Relief with a herdsman and cow before a sanctuary, Roman, late 1st century B.C.-mid-1st century A.D., marble, 11 3/4 x 13 1/4 in. (29.85 x 33.65 cm), State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich, Photograph by Renate Kühling

The country of Italy instituted its first comprehensive legislation restricting the export of antiquities and other artworks in 1909, though landowners were still able to apply for excavation permits and to sell or export a portion of finds discovered on their property. We know from a catalogue of Ludwig I’s art collection that the Roman portrait now on display at SAMA was in Munich by at least 1833, long before the 1909 laws. We also know that it couldn’t have been legally exported from Germany after it was photographed for the last time in Aschaffenburg in 1931. If it had been, records would exist. (But it’s highly unlikely, in any case, that a German museum would sell or give away such an important work of art.) All this means that the German state, into which the Kingdom of Bavaria was eventually incorporated, is the portrait’s most recent legal owner, and so it was repatriated to Germany. Not all Roman art comes from Italy, and there is no evidence that this particular artwork was looted from Italy.

The portrait displayed in the courtyard of the Pompejanum, Aschaffenburg, 1931. Photo courtesy of the Bavarian Administration of State-Owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes. 

Lynley McAlpine
Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow