Bartman, Elizabeth

PERSONAL: Female. Education: Columbia University, Ph.D., 1984.

ADDRESSES: Home—15 West 81st St., New York, NY 10024-6022. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Art historian, archeologist, and educator. Has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Barnard College, and Columbia University.

MEMBER: Archeological Institute of America (president).

WRITINGS:

Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature, E. J. Brill (New York, NY), 1992.

Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Contributor to The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition from the Present to Classical Antiquity, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Elizabeth Bartman is an art historian and archeologist who specializes in Greek and Roman art, with an emphasis on Roman sculpture. Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature concerns itself with the miniaturization of great works and is written in two parts. The first part defines these miniatures and puts them into a historical context, and the second part consists of three case studies, including the reproductions of the Resting Satyr, the Lateran Poseidon, and the Herakles Epitrapezios. More than one hundred examples of the first art object have survived. The second may have been overvalued merely because of its huge size. The third, in its original form, was small enough to be placed on a table. Burlington contributor Susan Walker noted that Bartman's book "is particularly useful in articulating the status of copies with clarity and sensitivity. Bartman is also adept at pinpointing the misjudgments of scholars too eager to link newly discovered sculptures with works favorably mentioned in the surviving literary sources, and no less at exposing earlier modern prejudice favoring the large over the small."

The function of miniature copies varied by period and evolving preferences but, as was pointed out by Lucilla Burn in Antiquaries Journal, during the Roman period they were status symbols, designed to make their owners feel that they possessed taste and education. Burn concluded her review by saying that Bartman "subscribes to and argues powerfully for the view that these miniatures were by no means slavish 'copies,' and that their producers were creatively adapting artists rather than mechanical 'copyists.' She certainly succeeds both in demonstrating that the ancient practice of copying eludes a single or a simple definition and in shedding much light on both ancient and modern conceptions of the 'copy.'"

Bartman's Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome is divided into two parts: "Patterns of Representation" focuses on images, and "The Politics of the Portraits" addresses how images of Livia were combined with those of her husband and son, Tiberius, and with larger family groups. Jas Elsner noted in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review online that the image of Livia was particularly important because of the significance of the family as it was portrayed visually with the inclusion of women and children, as well as its involvement in political and economic policy. Elsner wrote that "Bartman's discussion firmly puts Livia's portraiture back into this sociopolitical context, something an ordinary catalogue … would fail to do."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Antiquaries Journal, Volume 72, 1992, Lucilla Burn, review of Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature, p. 202.

Burlington, December, 1993, Susan Walker, review of Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature pp. 830-831.

Classical Review, number 2, 1993, Jeffrey Spier, review of Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature, pp. 381-383.

ONLINE

Archaeological Institute of America Web site, http://www.archaeological.org/ (February 15, 2005), "Elizabeth Bartman."

Bryn Mawr Classical Review Online, http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/ (May 26, 1999), Jas Elsner, review of Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome.