Hadrian: Empire and Conflict
The British Museum, until 26 October
Sponsored by BP
After last week’s Hadrian supplement in The Spectator, readers will be well-informed about this prince of emperors, so I will confine my remarks to a personal response to the exhibition. I must say immediately that it looks very impressive and that Sir Robert Smirke’s round Reading Room is the perfect setting for a display that also focuses on the architecture of the Pantheon. (Smirke based his dome directly on that great classical exemplar.) But this is not another Terracotta Army blockbuster: it is, in effect, an exhibition of busts and architectural models. If you’re interested in the period, you’ll love it, but I wonder how many visitors will be converted to the delights of ancient history by its charms.
As you come up the steps to enter the exhibition, you are confronted by three fragments of a newly discovered statue of Hadrian.
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