Miller Collection of Roman Sculpture: Mythological Figures and Portraits

The ancient Greeks presented a vision of man, rendered in stone, as an idealized, god-like individual. Romans took portraiture one step further, capturing for posterity the likeness of an actual person. Whether depicting statesmen, noblemen, or citizens-about-town, Roman sculptors made a revolutionary contribution by bringing everyday human qualities and characteristics into the realm of Western art.

This book describes in detail more than thirty Roman portrait statues, relief fragments, and full figures dating from 100 BC to AD 300 from the private collection of Dr. Michael Miller. Each stone portrait is accompanied by commentary from Richard Brilliant, professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, who assisted Dr. Miller the assembling the collection for over twenty years.

Distributed for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts