Baltimore Museum of Art: Antioch Mosaics

The Baltimore Museum of Art is one of two stellar traditional art museums in the city of Baltimore.  The other is the Walters.  Both have wide ranging collections covering art from antiquity to contemporary.  Among the classic works of art to be discovered at the BMA is one of the finest collections of Roman era mosaics anywhere. 

They come from the historic city of Antioch in modern day Turkey.  In the 1930's five institutions assembled a team of curators and spent 7 years (1932 - 1939) unearthing and cataloging over 300 floor mosaics.  In the end half of the discoveries were left in Turkey.  The remaining 150 or so were divided between the following:

• The Boston Museum of Fine Arts
• The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Worcester, MA
• Princeton University
• Harvard University and it's satellite museum at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, and
• The Baltimore Museum of Art

Some years back I was friends with a curator who worked at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Rebecca Molholt.  During a visit she took myself and a few others behind the scenes and allowed us to tour pieces of their collection not on display to the public.  It was an experience that I treasure and which solidified the history of these works of art in my memory.

The center of the original museum building is a courtyard surrounded by four light filled hallways.  The inner walls of these is where you will find the lion-share of the works that are on display.  Here are some images i took on this most recent visit.  Just a few of the 30 pieces in their collection.