Les sculptures romaines du musée du Bardo

The collection of sculptures in the Bardo museum in Tunis is little known. A Tunisian-French team has undertaken to write a detailed catalogue of it. All the works in the round (nearly 800, of all kinds) have therefore been the subject of careful examination and, for each, of a commentary. This first volume with its 175 entries is given over to portraits and portrait-statues, now headless, of men wearing togas or breastplates and of women draped according to different types of statuary. While a few sites are particularly well represented, Carthage (theater and odeon), Bulla Regia (temple of Apollo and theater), and Thuburbo Maius (“summer thermal baths” in particular), the works come from all over Tunisia; the collection is therefore quite representative of sculpture in Africa Proconsularis. Except for two probable images of Hellenistic rulers, these portraits belong to the Roman era, from Augustus to the end of Antiquity, with a large number from Antonine and Severan times. Some well-known works have been examined anew; many others were previously unpublished, and several identifications are proposed. This study sheds light on the techniques used by sculptors, sometimes specific to Africa; particular attention is paid to traces of colors preserved on a good number of sculptures, allowing new observations on the processes and objectives of the painters who worked on the statues. Moreover, the catalogue provides information on the trade in marbles and works of art as well as on the possible presence of workshops: although imports were numerous from most major centers of the Mediterranean, there were also some workshops in Africa itself, sometimes led by craftsmen who themselves came from the great workshops of Asia Minor, Greece or Rome.