Torlonia Collection

Torlonia Collection, an assemblage of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures that formerly made up the collection of the Torlonia Museum, a private archaeological museum in Rome founded in the 18th century by Giovanni Torlonia. With his son, Torlonia acquired pieces for the museum through the purchase of other collections or through the funding of archaeological excavations on his estates at Vulci, Porto, and Cerveteri. The museum closed in the 1970s, and its contents were placed in storage. In the 2020s a few of the pieces were restored and exhibited globally as the Torlonia Collection.

The Torlonia Collection contains about 600 items of sculpture, including a few Greek originals. The most important sculptures were the 5th-century-bce Hestia Giustiniani and a relief depicting Heracles liberating Theseus and Peirithöos, attributed to the school of Phidias and dating from the 4th century bce. There were many Roman copies of Greek works by sculptors such as Polyclitus, Praxiteles, and Lysippus. A fine portrait of Lucilla, daughter of Marcus Aurelius, was among the 100 or so Roman portrait busts from the Imperial period.

After decades in storage, several pieces from the collection were restored and shown at the Capitoline Museums in Rome between 2020 and 2022. A few were also shown at the Louvre (2024), Paris; the Art Institute of Chicago (2025); and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas (2025).