Visitors to the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) will notice a familiar face—or lack thereof—in the rotunda: The 6-foot-4-inch statue thought to depict the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Once standing in the Greek and Roman Art gallery, the emperor has returned to Cleveland for one last appearance.
In September 2023, the statue was seized as part of an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office into artifacts illegally smuggled out of Turkey. On Feb. 14 of this year, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced that the statue will be repatriated to Turkey after the investigation concluded that it originated in Bubon, Turkey, and had been removed from the site by smugglers. The exhibit in the rotunda began on April 8 and will end on July 8, after which the statue will leave the CMA forever.
Around the statue are four panels that have not been previously exhibited. They detail the statue’s iconography and identity, the site of Bubon, the scientific analyses conducted to confirm the statue’s provenance and the legal aspects of the investigation. I can only share some of what the panels say lest I turn this article into an essay—I will only add that the panels are worth reading in full for the insight they provide into the statue’s history.
The first panel notes that the statue is unique for its depiction of a Roman man in the style of an Athenian, showing a comparison to a statue of the playwright Sophocles. “Other statues of men found at Bubon represent Roman emperors as gods, taking the form of heroic nudes, sometimes with recognizable portrait heads and matching inscriptions on statue bases,” the panel reads. Furthermore, it says that the statue’s base did not stand on the base with Marcus Aurelius’ name on it: The statue stood on an uninscribed base, so the connection to Marcus Aurelius is not fully certain.
I found the third panel to be the most interesting because it explains how scientists and investigators confirmed the connection between the statue and Bubon. After it was shown that the plug on the left foot of the statue closely matched a pedestal without an identifying inscription, “isotope analyses were performed on lead samples taken from the statue’s foot and from the corresponding holes in the pedestal.” Further analyses were conducted on soil from the site and the statue, all of which led to the conclusion that the statue once stood on this uninscribed pedestal. Wonderful discoveries can be made when science and classics come together.
If you ever want a break from taking final exams and writing essays, I encourage you to drop by the CMA and see this statue before it departs on July 8. It is a breathtaking piece of craftsmanship (seriously, how does one achieve the effect of a flowing robe out of bronze?) and has always been one of my favorite artifacts from the Greek and Roman Art gallery. It is a miracle that such a work of art survives since at any point in the last two millennia it could have been melted down for useful metal or simply lost to the ravages of time. Take advantage of such a fortunate opportunity and see this imposing masterpiece for yourself!
Thus ends my trilogy on the Marcus Aurelius statue, which I first beheld with awe as a first-year beginning his lifelong study of classics, whose story I have enjoyed following for the last year and a half and whose presence at the CMA will be sorely missed.