Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)
ANNUAL REPORT - A 2006. ÉV - JUDIT LEBEGYEV: Highlighted Works of Art: Chamber Exhibitions Organized by the Collection of Classical Antiquities
HIGHLIGHTED WORKS OF ART CHAMBER EXHIBITIONS ORGANIZED BY THE COLLECTION OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES The Collection of Classical Antiquities embarked upon a project in December 2003, in the hope that it would establish a tradition. The aim of the series of chamber exhibitions, entitled "Highlighted W r orks of Art", is to regularly present the results of the ongoing work in the collection, to display newly acquired pieces and restored artefacts, and to introduce those pieces wdiich have recently produced valuable scholarly results that are worthy of public interest. The exhibitions in 2006 featured both newly acquired works of art, and pieces that have long been preserved in the collection. The mosaic depicting Orpheus, and displayed at the spring exhibition (7 March - 28 May), is one of the new acquisitions. The arched hexagonal mosaic, which was made around 250-350 AD in a North African workshop using a polychrome technique, was one of the most important purchases of 2005, and is the only ancient mosaic preserved in the collection. 1 Orpheus, portrayed as an exotically dressed youth, sits on a rockholding a four-string kithara in his left hand, and a plectrum in his right. A songbird with coloured plumage perches on a tree beside him. The figure of the songster-hero, with the power to tame both the raging sea and wild beasts with his music, was a favourite subject of Roman mosaic work. In all probability this piece adorned the floor of a villa. The rest of the composition around the figure of Orpheus as the central motif may have represented animals turning towards the songster. The image of the youth, who descended into the underworld in search of his love and returned alive, who could control the forces of nature with the magic of his music, offered a similar variety of interpretations to the people of antiquity as it does to the modern viewer. Indeed the same piece that was once set in the floor of a long gone villa, can be viewed in the exhibition. The summer and the autumn exhibitions displayed works of art that have been preserved in the collection for some time, but which have recently produced novel research results. The undecorated jug exhibited in the summer (7 June - 27 August), probably the product of a Greek workshop in Sicily, and dated to the end of the sixth century or the fifth century BC, is rendered worthy of display by the unique arrangement of its two handles, which are not on opposite sides to one another as usual, but instead are set at right angles to each other. The widespread distribution and the various shapes of the so-called pignate may indicate a difference in their functions. Through two present-day examples the exhibition illustrated the fact that the unique arrangement of the handles is always associated with a specific function: the pot on loan from
