Art History Lecture Series: Decoding Portraits from Antiquity | Presented by Katherine Schwab | Athenaeum Music & Arts Library | La Jolla (September 2–16)

Decoding Portraits from Antiquity
Presented by Dr. Katherine A. Schwab
Professor Emerita of Art History & Visual Culture, Fairfield University
Tuesdays, September 2, 9 & 16, 2025
Whose face do we see in a portrait? Is it a likeness, character study, or the truth? Today, portraits can be enhanced through multiple software effects and AI. What evidence do we have for portraits from antiquity around the Mediterranean region—exploring portraits of historical individuals from Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greece, and the Roman world? In this series we will consider artistic challenges in creating a portrait of someone who died centuries earlier or who was known only by distant reputation. Ranging from the third millennium BCE through the second century CE, sculpture, coinage, and paintings will bring us full circle from deep antiquity to the astonishingly vivid Fayum portraits discovered in an area of ancient Egypt following Greek and then Roman occupation.

JOAN & IRWIN JACOBS
MUSIC ROOM
Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
1008 Wall Street
La Jolla, CA 92037

LECTURE BEGINS AT 7:30 PM.
DOORS OPEN AT 7:00 PM.