History Comes Alive at the Museum of Antiquities

This coming Friday March 20, 2015 the Museum of Antiquities will be hosting its annual volunteer appreciation event.   The event, which includes a wine and cheese reception, is held not only to acknowledge and thank the volunteers for the hundreds of hours they put in at the Museum every year, but also to celebrate their many successes gained through the experience and knowledge obtained while at the Museum. As many of you know, the Museum has been around for some forty years now.   In some ways, the Museum and its collections had humble and lonely beginnings.   The collection was homeless for its first few years and had a keeper who wanted to reserve the collection for academic eyes only, as well as librarians who felt the nude statues should be covered up with fig leaves, or better yet locked away behind closed doors.   Fortunately in the early 1980s, a new permanent home for the collection was found in the Murray Library along with a new curator, Ms. Catherin...

In 1989 the Museum of Antiquities received a beautiful bronze bust from Judge John C. Currelly of Port Hope, Ontario. At this time, the true identity of the bust was unknown, and the general consensus was that it was a French baroque bronze portrait of the Emperor Hadrian. However research done by the previous Museum Director Catherine Gunderson and Professor Paul Hamilton (Department of Art and Art History) revealed the portrait to be Hannibal, accomplished Carthaginian general and nemesis to the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE). Moreover, this sculpture is a 17 th century CE French original crafted in the workshop of Francois Girardon (1628-1715). Girardon is best known for his position as a sculptor for King Louis XIV of France and primary contributor to the abundant artwork at the Palace of Versailles. Francois Souchal, Professor of Art History at the Paris West University Nanterre La Défense in France (now retired), a noted authority on 17 th and 18 th ...

Welcome to the Museum of Antiquities’ new blog! This is our inaugural post. Thank you for checking us out! As 2014 has now come to a close, we look back at the year in which the Museum’s collection  turned 40.   We take the opportunity to reflect on the Museum’s history and think about what we will strive toward in the future.   We celebrated our 40th anniversary on October 16 th , 2014 with a presentation in Convocation Hall and a reception in the Museum’s gallery.   Brent Nelson, Tracene Harvey, Dean Peter Stoicheff and President Gordon Barnhart spoke about the history of the Museum and its impact on the University, the students who have passed through the volunteer program, as well as the world of cast collections. We also unveiled our new acquisition: a replica bust of the Augustus Bevilacqua from the Atelier Moulages du Louvre workshop, which we were able to purchase thanks to the generosity of donors and supporters. The event was well attended and enjoyed ...