![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/789d420758bdb281baab047a6042d365f4992476-3071x4007.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nThe Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen opened back in 1897, but it still reflects the grandiose tastes of its founder, the brewer and collector Carl Jacobsen. His Belle-\u00c9poque passion for classical antiquity could have meant gathering together anything from pottery shards to bits of Roman glass, but Jacobsen went in for the \u201cbig and flashy\u201d, says the Glyptotek curator Cecilie Br\u00f8ns, invoking the museum\u2019s signature portrait statues. This October, the Glyptotek will take full advantage of Jacobsen\u2019s legacy with the largest show about antiquity in its history, dedicated to the adornment of the human body.<\/p>\n
The Power of Fashion in the Roman Empire, featuring 171 objects, will be a new way to look at these towering in-house works, like the elegantly draped statue of the Emperor Tiberius and of the freed slave Fundilius Doctus decked out in an elaborate toga (both from the mid-first century AD). It will also include some sensational loans. The British Museum is sending three rare examples of Roman tunics, none of which have left the museum before. And Turkey\u2019s Burdur Museum, 125km inland from Antalya, is sending the two massive leg fragments and the head from a once colossal sculpture of Emperor Septimius Severus for a display about footwear.<\/p>\n
Polychromy in ancient sculpture has been a key area of research at the Glyptotek, and colour in Roman clothing will be at the heart of the exhibition.<\/p>\n
The now off-white mantle drapery on the Tiberius statue was once a pinkish purple, one of a range of related colours known in Latin as \u201cpurpura,\u201d associated with a type of dye made from Mediterranean snails and much valued in the ancient world. (The show includes an approximation of the mantle\u2019s original shade in a logo-worthy digital image.) Meanwhile, research indicates that Fundilius\u2019s toga was once painted red or orange, reflecting the subject\u2019s status as a former slave.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A digital image reveals how Emperor Tiberius\u2019s mantle drapery would have looked \u00a9 Glyptoteket<\/p>\n
Red herring<\/p>\n
Clothes, no matter the shade, can\u00a0be something of a red herring when it comes to Ancient Rome, suggests Br\u00f8ns. The British Museum\u2019s tunics, along with a Byzantine fragment from the Glyptotek\u2019s own holdings, may indicate what the ancients actually wore. But statues demonstrate something else\u2014how clothing was depicted to indicate status.<\/p>\n
Br\u00f8ns cites the statue of the Emperor Trajan as a military commander. The figure is\u00a0shown wearing a pleated tunic, a\u00a0leather doublet, an elaborate breastplate and a paludamentum (a large ceremonial cloak used by\u00a0Roman military officers). It is doubtful whether\u00a0the real Trajan ever wore them in battle or even that a real commander might have dressed that way. What matters, Br\u00f8ns says, is that Trajan was presented that way to his subjects. People wore clothes in Ancient Rome, but\u00a0fashion, as such, was an instrument of\u00a0statecraft.<\/p>\n