In recent years, there has been intense debate about the reality behind the depiction of maritime cityscapes, especially harbours. Visualizing Harbours in the Classical World argues that the available textual and iconographic evidence supports the argument that these representations have a symbolic, rather than literal, meaning and message, and moreover that the traditional view, that all these media represent the reality of the contemporary cityscapes, is often unrealistic. Bridging the gap between archaeological sciences and the humanities, it ably integrates iconographic materials, epigraphic sources, history and archaeology, along with visual culture. Focusing on three main ancient ports - Alexandria, Rome and Leptis Magna - Federico Ugolini considers a range of issues around harbour iconography, from the triumphal imagery of monumental harbours and the symbolism of harbour images, their identification across the Mediterranean, and their symbolic, ideological and propagandistic messages, to the ways in which aspects of Imperial authority and control over the seas were expressed in the iconography of the Julio-Claudian, Trajan and Severii periods, how they reflected the repute, growth and power of the mercantile class during the Imperial era, and how the use of imagery reflected euergetism and paideia, which would inform the Roman audience about who had power over the sea.

Domesticating Empire is the first contextually-oriented monograph on Egyptian imagery in Roman households. Caitlin Barrett draws on case studies from Flavian Pompeii to investigate the close association between representations of Egypt and a particular type of Roman household space: the domestic garden. Through paintings and mosaics portraying the Nile, canals that turned the garden itself into a miniature "Nilescape," and statuary depicting Egyptian themes, many gardens in Pompeii offered ancient visitors evocations of a Roman vision of Egypt. Simultaneously faraway and familiar, these imagined landscapes made the unfathomable breadth of empire compatible with the familiarity of home. In contrast to older interpretations that connect Roman "Aegyptiaca" to the worship of Egyptian gods or the problematic concept of "Egyptomania," a contextual analysis of these garden assemblages suggests new possibilities for meaning. In Pompeian houses, Egyptian and Egyptian-looking objects and images interacted with their settings to construct complex entanglements of "foreign" and "familiar," "self" and "other." Representations of Egyptian landscapes in domestic gardens enabled individuals to present themselves as sophisticated citizens of empire. Yet at the same time, household material culture also exerted an agency of its own: domesticizing, familiarizing, and "Romanizing" once-foreign images and objects. That which was once imagined as alien and potentially dangerous was now part of the domus itself, increasingly incorporated into cultural constructions of what it meant to be "Roman." Featuring brilliant illustrations in both color and black and white, Domesticating Empire reveals the importance of material culture in transforming household space into a microcosm of empire.

One of the most important monuments of Imperial Rome and at the same time one of the most poorly understood, the Column of Marcus Aurelius has long stood in the shadow of the Column of Trajan. In The Column of Marcus Aurelius, Martin Beckmann makes a thorough study of the form, content, and meaning of this infrequently studied monument. Beckmann employs a new approach to the column, one that focuses on the process of its creation and construction, to uncover the cultural significance of the column to the Romans of the late second century A.D. Using clues from ancient sources and from the monument itself, this book traces the creative process step by step from the first decision to build the monument through the processes of planning and construction to the final carving of the column's relief decoration. The conclusions challenge many of the widely held assumptions about the value of the column's 700-foot-long frieze as a historical source. By reconstructing the creative process of the column's sculpture, Beckmann opens up numerous new paths of analysis not only to the Column of Marcus Aurelius but also to Roman imperial art and architecture in general.

Chang Dai-chien (1899-1983), one of the most celebrated Chinese painters of the twentieth century, is renowned for his stylistic variety and unparalleled productivity. This book explores three key artistic dimensions-Chang's early ink paintings emulating ancient Chinese styles, his lively portrayals of nature made while residing in Brazil and California, and the transcendent splashed-ink art of his later years. Stunning reproductions of masterworks and insightful texts come together to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Chang's birth and his lasting connection to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. See the Chang Dai-chien exhibit at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco: November 26, 2019-April 26, 2020

Why is Cleopatra, a descendent of Alexander the Great, a Ptolemy from a Greek-Macedonian family, in popular imagination an Oriental woman? True, she assumed some aspects of pharaonic imagery in order to rule Egypt, but her Orientalism mostly derives from ancient (Roman) and modern stereotypes: both the Orient and the idea of a woman in power are signs, in the Western tradition, of 'otherness' - and in this sense they can easily overlap and interchange. This volume investigates how ancient women, and particularly powerful women, such as queens and empresses, have been re-imagined in Western (and not only Western) arts; highlights how this re-imagination and re-visualization is, more often than not, the product of Orientalist stereotypes - even when dealing with women who had nothing to do with Eastern regions; and compares these images with examples of Eastern gaze on the same women. Through the chapters in this volume, readers will discover the similarities and differences in the ways in which women in power were and still are described and decried by their opponents.