The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College hosts Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire, on view now through June 8, 2008.
According to the Brooklyn Museum—which organized the exhibition and first displayed it in 2005-2006—it examines the role of Roman-period mosaics in the development of synagogue decoration in the late Roman Empire.
The exhibition presents the reconstruction of an ancient mosaic floor from a synagogue in Hammam Lif, Tunisia—the ancient town of Naro, later called Aquae Persianae by the Romans.
“Superbly conceived by the Brooklyn Museum to pose larger questions about links among various faith communities in Late Antiquity, this exhibition and its public programs draw on strengths of the Boston College faculty’s research and curriculum and on the University’s commitment to exploring the relationship among Jews, Christians and Muslims from antiquity to the present,” according to McMullen Museum Director and Professor of Art History Nancy Netzer. “We look forward to welcoming at the McMullen visitors from all three faith groups.”
A Latin inscription in one of the surviving panels records that the mosaic floor was a gift to the synagogue from a certain Julia, a resident of Naro in about 500 C.E. Other mosaic panels in the exhibition, datable to the first or second century C.E., originated either in an earlier part of the same synagogue or in a nearby building.
The mosaics were discovered by chance in 1883 by a French army captain, Ernest de Prudhomme, while preparing ground for gardening. In 1905, the Brooklyn Museum acquired most of the panels Prudhomme had owned and transported back to his home in Lyon. According to Ruth Langer, associate professor of Jewish Studies in the Theology Department and academic director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, “Today, these panels provide a fascinating contrast to the much richer archaeological evidence for synagogues of this period now known from the Land of Israel.”
Twenty-one mosaics—along with some 40 works from the Brooklyn Museum’s Roman art collection, including contemporary jewelry, coins, marble statues, ritual objects and textiles—shed light on the role of synagogues in the Diaspora during Late Antiquity, the development of Jewish art in the Roman period, the importance of female patrons in the ancient Jewish community, connections among early Christian, Jewish and Pagan symbolism in this period, and the relationship between ancient and modern understanding of the synagogue as an institution. The works of art included in the exhibition reveal a society where Jews were more integrated and accepted than ancient texts would suggest.
A catalogue by the exhibition’s curator, Edward Bleiberg, Curator of Egyptian, Classical and Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the Brooklyn Museum, accompanies the exhibition.
Museum Hours: Monday – Friday 11-4, Saturday and Sunday 12-5.
Closed: March 21 and 23, April 21, May 26.
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