A Trip to the RISD Museum

            I had the pleasure of spending time with an old friend at the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island this past weekend.  It was a treat for me, as I have never gone there even though I can walk from my office to their door.  It’s funny how one neglects to explore treasures so close to home.  We simply take it for granted that they are there.  This was remedied on Friday afternoon.

            What a surprise! For some reason, I pictured this particular museum as only housing paintings.  There is a treasure trove of historic items from antiquity including pieces from Pompeii, Rome, Egypt, Asia and Greece.  I could have stayed several hours longer just staring at these exquisite items.  A long hall filled with painted portraits done by all the masters made my jaw drop.  I couldn’t believe the amount housed in that one space!

            The RISD Museum is much larger than it looks from the exterior.  It is a combination of buildings that makes the exploration of the collection exciting as one winds from one area to another.   When I walked into the Roman antiquities room, I was greeted by a bust of Agrippina that had been reworked in the 1800s using colored marble as accents.  As I stared into her face, I knew she wasn’t a woman to be trifled with.  Although many accounts of her murderous acts written in antiquity were exaggerated for political reasons, Nero’s mother did have an enormous amount of power and wasn’t afraid to use it.  And is it truly a surprise that one of Caligula’s sisters would have a murderous streak?

            I walked from ancient Rome to ancient Greece gazing into a wide variety of cases filled with coins.  I love to look at the details of these small items.  The portraits, which were all hand carved, must have taken hours to create by a group of fine artisans.  Nothing was mass-produced by machine back then! The jewelry displayed, several which were earrings, were made of fine gold with small beads or stones for accent.  These delicate pieces once hung from a wealthy woman’s ear and now were pinned onto a board and covered in glass. 

            I could go on and on, but why not just visit it for yourself?  Visit www.risdmuseum.org to learn more about the collection and plan a day trip.  Believe me, you won’t regret going.