Viva Roma ! A certain taste for the Antiquity, presented at La Boverie of Liege

In partnership with the Louvre, La Boverie of Liège presents, until the 26th of August 2018, an important international exhibition that brings to mind the stay of European artists in Rome during their Grand Tour. This new outstanding cultural event, featuring 150 works pertaining to this idealized and mythical city, stems from loans by the institutions and museums of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Yale, Budapest, Naples and Copenhagen.

In Liege, La Boverie pays homage to Rome

Showcasing famous monuments and nostalgic fantasies, Rome is magnified in these paintings as the capital of a former empire. It's in this timeless entity that reknown European painters and sculptors went to visit, starting in the 18th century, to draw their inspiration from the Antiquity and the local artists whose works they imitated, while being immersed in their classic culture.

Fascinated by antique discoveries, Hubert Robert spent 10 years in the Italian capital to interpret them in his drawings. © MAAV

During his stay in the Italian peninsula, Charles François Houel sketched the ruins of Roman temples. © Pierre Guénat

Flashback on timeless Italy

The exhibition is organized in shared themes for the greatest pleasure of its visitors : Discovering the Antiquity Period, Copying the Renaissance, Rome the Catholic, The Robbers, An Artistic Phenomenon, The Forum Obsession, The Melting Pot of Villa Médicis, The People of Rome, The Light of Rome and The Neapolitan Excursion. A very complete tourist catalogue in order to prepare your next visit to Italy…

In the middle of the 19th century, Scotsman Robert MacPherson painted the Forum, the major archeological site of Rome, as he perceived it © SSAGM