{"title":"Laetitia La Follette","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"agency-and-ancestry-book-laetitia-la-follette-9780190842970","title":"Agency and Ancestry","description":"Marble portraiture was one of the great artistic achievements of the ancient Romans, and their portraits frequently served as political tools. Well-known examples include the heads of wizened men of the late Republic whose physiognomy spelled out the physical toll of their dedicated service to Rome. Under the Empire, the emperor's image was imbued with attributes of divinity to proclaim his fitness to rule. Less attention has been paid to the so-called private portraits, marble heads representing wealthy citizens, and the way such portraits interacted with each other in ancient group settings. Part of the problem comes in the dearth of archaeological, art historical and biographical documentation for portrait groups, leaving their context and interactions of depicted individuals a mystery.Addressing issues of identity, purpose, and patronage, Agency and Ancestry focuses on one extraordinary exception that provides both context and individual backstories: the critically important but long ignored portrait group of the noble family of the Licinii Crassi. Consisting of fifteen marble portraits, twelve of the portraits originate in the mid-first century CE and include a famous depiction of the late Republican general Pompey the Great, while the other three belong to the second century CE and depict an imperial prince and cousins of the Antonine emperors. Laetitia La Follette uses the collection as a case study for the political use of portraiture by the ancient Roman aristocracy and argues that the patron for the first-century group was Pompey's great-great-granddaughter, whose aim was to claw back the famous general's legacy from its appropriation by the emperor Augustus. This political program was successful for a time--the emperor Claudius honoured her husband and considered their son heir apparent. Although she and her family were eventually murdered, her Antonine descendants a century later did indeed succeed in ascending the throne. These portraits thus allow us to trace the family tree of an ancient aristocratic Roman line over nearly three centuries and reflects the visual strategy for self-presentation of an ambitious noble family.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":54724122935569,"sku":"NGR9780190842970","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-laetitia-la-follette.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}