Pompeii Exhibit Coming to LACMA

Approximately 120 classical Roman artifacts from Pompeii and its environs are set to appear in a special exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2009.

California's Los Angeles County Museum of Art will host Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples, planned for May 3 through October 4, 2009. Organized by Washington, D.C.'s National Gallery of Art, the exhibition includes works of art from the imperial dwelling at Oplontis, Stabiae's aristocratic Villa San Marco, elite Pompeiian houses and the famous Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, the architectural inspiration for nearby Malibu's Getty Villa of classical art and antiquity. Some 120 paintings, sculptures, mosaics and luxury items, many of them famous, join lesser-known objects from the same sites and others from recent excavations around the Bay of Naples. The influence of Greek aesthetics on Roman art and the influence of archaeological sites' rediscovery on modern art and culture are predominant themes of this presentation.