The Capitoline Museums play host to the bronze head of Ptolemaic Queen Arsinoe III, on temporary loan from the Municipal Museum in the Palazzo Te in Mantua.

Arsinoe III, the daughter of Ptolemy III and Berenice II was born in either 246 or 245 BC and was Queen of Egypt between 220 and 204 BC. She married her brother, Ptolemy IV sometime between the end of October and early Novembere220 BC, sharing the reign with him for sixteen years and by whom she had a son, Ptolemy V. She was personally involved in the battle of Rafia, plaintively urging her troops to fight and she played a vital role in the clash with the Syrian troops of Antioch III. Courageous and full of energy, her proud and aristocratic character was particularly evident in her outspoken criticism of her husband’s behaviour and attitude; he was in fact described as being weak and disinterested in affairs of state, something which undoubtedly contributed to the decline of the Ptolemaic empire. In the summer of 204 B.C, not long after the death of her husband /brother, Arsinoe fell victim to the intrigues of court and was assassinated, although her death was quickly avenged by a desperate and ferocious mob that turned on and killed those responsible.

The Queen’s popularity is evident from the number of works in which she is featured: statues, coins, paintings and relief’s, most of which have been uncovered in Egypt, clearly made both during her lifetime and immediately following her death. It would seem that pieces produced posthumously were part of a deliberate propaganda campaign by Arsinoe’s son, King Ptolemy V, who wanted to use the cult status of his mother to legitimize and reinforce his own power as a means of safeguarding the continuation of the dynasty.

Characterised by its terse, sober realism, the bronze provides an objective record of the Queen’s face when fully mature although a few features, well-documented through the profiles of her that appeared on coins of the period, have been slightly softened. This elegantly modelled head was perhaps part of a statue produced to honour the sovereign after her death, and it echoes the Hellenistic bronze portraits done during the Alexandrine period produced by masterly Egyptian craftsmen between the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 2nd centuries BC.

Despite being the century in which Italy won its freedom and its national independence, in other words the era of the Risorgimento or national reawakening, the 19th century has always seemed to coincide with Italy's loss of its former leading role, after the country's culture and civilisation had dominated the world for centuries. While opera, with Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini, was universally appreciated (and has remained so), only the sculptor Canova in the early part of the century and the painters Boldini and Segantini in the latter part have enjoyed anything like genuine international recognition.

The aim of this exhibition is to show how, in Rome and Milan, in Florence and Naples, a handful of excellent painters struggled, in an extremely tough historical environment, to realise works of art in keeping with the best Italian tradition---increasingly out of their reach.

Appiani, Palagi, Hayez and the members of the Romantic School in Milan, Macchiaioli such as Fattori, Lega and Signorini in Florence, "veduta" painters from the Posillipo school and Morelli in Naples are among the artists whose works are on view.

Sylvie Courvoisier Quintet

Sylvie Courvoisier, piano
Mark Feldman, violin
Vincent Courtois, cello
Ikue Mori, electronics
Gerald Cleaver, percussion