ROMAN SEXUALITY: IMAGES, MYTHS & MEANINGS
The Warren Cup is a luxurious silver cup that would have used at dinner parties. As a work of art it's a masterpiece - its fine decoration achieved by beating the silver into shape from the inside using fine hammers and chisels. Luxuriant fabrics and musical instruments indicate a world heavily influenced by Greek culture, which the Romans admired and adopted.
So what is so special about the decoration that made it one of the British Museum's highest profile and most controversial acquisitions? What kept the piece out of permanent museum collections until 1999 and ensured that its purchase earned it a place in all the British media? Sex.
This little cup embraces the Romans' love of banqueting, their passion for conspicuous shows of wealth, their love of beautiful things and their skill in creating them. It also allows a glimpse into the private life of Romans, challenging our traditional view of how they lived and loved.
Roman Sexuality: Images, Myths & Meanings will be at Brading Roman Villa on the Isle of Wight from 14thFebruary to 4thMay and features over fifty objects from the British Museum collection including the world famous Warren Cup which featured recently in the BBCs ‘History of the World in 100 Objects'. In fact, this exhibition will be only the second time that the Warren Cup has left the British Museum! It brings together a wide variety of artefacts and images from Roman art and archaeology and investigates what they meant to those who made and used them.
The new exhibition gallery at Brading will be the only exhibition space of its kind on the Isle of Wight and will allow the Villa to host major touring exhibits from national museums. It will officially open in February with the exhibition from the British Museum.
The work to create the high-tech secure space, undertaken by Island firm Stoneham Construction, began in November after the Villa was awarded over £100,000 in grant funding from bodies including Arts Council England, The Herapath Shenton Trust, The Garfield Weston Foundation, The Friends of Brading Roman Villa, The British Museum Trust Ltd, The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and The Worshipful Company of Mercers.
The project involved complex and innovative engineering as the gallery walls were built on a suspended floor and include modular sections which can be turned or removed to accommodate different types of exhibition. All the work had to meet the rigorous security standards specified by the British Museum.
Explicit sexual imagery is widely found in Roman art in both public and private buildings. It was an accepted feature of ancient Roman culture and was seen by all sections of society. The exhibition will run from 14th February to 4th May and will be open daily 10am-4pm.
Oglander Roman Trust, Brading Roman Villa, Morton Old Road, Brading, Isle of Wight, PO36 0PH
Tel: 01983 406223 Fax: 01983 407924 www.bradingromanvilla.org.uk E-mail info@bradingromanvilla.org.uk
Registered Charity Number 1044506
THE WARREN CUP
A silver cup with relief decoration of homoerotic scenes, this object takes its name from its first owner in modern times, the art-lover and collector Edward Perry Warren (1860-1928). After Warren's death the cup remained in private hands, largely because of the nature of the subject matter. Only with changing attitudes in the 1980s was the cup exhibited to the public, and in 1999 the British Museum was able to give this important piece a permanent home in the public domain. The museum paid £1.8m for it, making it then the most expensive single item it had ever acquired. Half a century ago, the cup was offered for a fraction of the price, but the consensus was that there was not a chance of getting the beautifully modelled homosexual imagery past the then chairman of the trustees - the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Edward Warren was an eccentric and wealthy American collector who spent most of his adult life at Lewes, East Sussex, where he also commissioned Rodin's marble The Kiss. In 1911, he travelled to Rome to meet a dealer, and seems to have paid £2,000 for the cup.
The British Museum believe the cup was made in the first century AD, possibly by Greek craftsmen for a Roman client. It was probably excavated in the early 20th century in Palestine, having been hidden and never recovered rather than buried in a grave or lost. Such cups were intended to provoke conversation at private entertainments, and were usually made in pairs, raising the intriguing possibility that the Warren Cup's companion is still out there somewhere.
The cup was originally made up of five parts - the thin-walled bowl with its high relief scenes, raised by hammering; an inner liner of thicker sheet silver with a solid rim, which would have made both drinking and cleaning easier; a pair of handles (now lost) and a cast foot soldered to the base.
The scenes on each side show two pairs of male lovers, the surroundings suggest a cultured setting with music and entertainment.
Representations of sexual acts are widely found in Roman art, on glass and pottery vessels, terracotta lamps and wall-paintings in both public and private buildings. They were thus commonly seen by both sexes, and all sections of society.
The Romans had no concept of, or word for, homosexuality, while in the Greek world the partnering of older men with youths was an accepted element of education. The Warren Cup reflects the customs and attitudes of this historical context, and provides us with an important insight into the culture that made and used it.
Oglander Roman Trust, Brading Roman Villa, Morton Old Road, Brading, Isle of Wight, PO36 0PH
Tel: 01983 406223 Fax: 01983 407924 www.bradingromanvilla.org.uk E-mail info@bradingromanvilla.org.uk
Registered Charity Number 1044506