Word: sulla
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...dreaded Roman Conqueror Lucius Cornelius Sulla stormed and looted Athens. Sulla was perhaps the leading looter of ancient times, sending to Rome thousands of works of art from all over the Greek world. Archaeologist Erythmios Mastrokostas, who bossed the Piraeus dig, thinks that the statue was part of Sulla's booty already crated for loading on one of his ships. Very likely a fire in the waterfront warehouse reduced its packing material to black ashes. In the confusion of war, no one noticed the statues. Weeds grew high, rubbish accumulated, and when Piraeus was rebuilt, a street ran over...
...tools inserted through the cracks. Then the outside surface was brushed, baked in an oven and treated to cure blisters and a surface condition that Greek archaeologists call "bronze tuberculosis." At last the kouros acquired a patina almost as soft and mellow as the one that first attracted Connoisseur Sulla, and the young man looks much as he did when he stood in some ancient temple. His grace and balance, his strength mixed with beauty, give the ideals of the Greeks one more victory over time...
Loving Patina. Since the making and collecting of statuettes was the custom in ancient Rome, it was inevitable that the men of the Renaissance should revive it. They read of superb little sculptures like the Hercules that the poet Statius insisted Hannibal had admired and that Sulla used for adorning his banquet table. Fifteenth century connoisseurs not only collected ancient statuettes but also began commissioning contemporary ones...