Life, Death, and Revelry

Exhibition Website

Jun 14 2018 - Sep 3 2018


The Farnese Sarcophagus—with its glorious images of cavorting satyrs and maenads—is one of the most important works of art in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The exhibition and accompanying catalog trace the object's journey over two millennia from ancient Rome to contemporary Boston, exploring the many ways in which it has inspired generations of artists, collectors, conservators, and viewers since its rediscovery in the early modern era. 

Traveling through time with the Farnese Sarcophagus, we examine it from multiple perspectives - artistic, scholarly, scientific - and consider how its meaning has changed over two millennia.

For the first time in over 100 years, we have moved this monumental work from its usual location, wedged between columns in the Palace courtyard, into Hostetter Gallery, so that all four sides of it are now visible. This exhibition presents new discoveries by our conservation team about its original colorful appearance and the restoration campaigns it has undergone in the last few centuries.

This ancient work will be in conversation with Maenads & Satyrs, a 3D video installation by 2012 Artists-in-Residence OpenEndedGroup. The soundtrack is composed by Kaija Saariaho and performed by cellist Yeesun Kim of the Borromeo Quartet.


Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website
Image: Roman, Severan, Farnese Sarcophagus with Revelers Gathering Grapes: Left, about 225 AD. Marble, 163.2 x 62.23 x 26.67 cm. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (S12e3)


Whether or not you go, the accompanying catalog, Life Death & Revelry: The Farnese Sarcophagus offers a multi-disciplinary, multi-era look at this important monument. In terms of antiquarian fame, the Farnese Sarcophagus – elaborately carved with satyrs and maenads gathering grapes – may be the most important work of art in the Gardner collection, and perhaps of its type in America. A large, rectangular coffin of Pentelic marble, the Farnese Sarcophagus was exported from Athens to the area of Rome in the late Severan period, between c. 222 and 235 AD. The carving of the satyrs and maenads was especially suited to the artistic tastes of Mannerist and Baroque Rome, providing one of the most elegant examples of Greek imperial optic elongation to have survived from ancient times. This beautiful publication brings together archaeological analyses of the piece and its previous restorations, and numerous Renaissance prints and drawings depicting the sarcophagus during its time in Rome. 

Select Life Death & Revelry: The Farnese Sarcophagus for more information, or to add this book to your Amazon Shopping cart.

  • Sculpture
  • European
  • Ancient

Exhibition Venues & Dates