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Johns Hopkins University | AS.040.425

Classics Research Lab: Ancient Bodies of Modern Baltimore, the Peabody Cast Collection Project

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The Peabody Cast Collection (PCC) Classics Research Lab project will revolve around a remarkable collection of plaster casts of classical Greek and Roman sculptures, created ca. 1879 for the Peabody Institute (now part of JHU). Such cast collections were a highly valued cultural resource in Europe and North America during the later 17th to early 20th centuries, produced for major museums, academic institutions and wealthy individuals. Because of the technical process of the cast formation, which is based directly upon the ancient sculptural surface, these collections brought contact with the actual classical artifacts into temporally and spatially distant contexts—including the burgeoning urban center of 19th century Baltimore. The PCC Lab’s initial objective is archival and field research of the cast collection—its content, formation, access and usage by the people of Baltimore and its eventual disbanding and distribution. From this, we will aim to virtually reassemble its member objects, charting their biographies and, when extant, their current locations. This in part will be accomplished digitally, in a virtual reconstruction of the original display contexts of the casts within the Peabody Institute based on early hand-written ledgers, logs, and photographs. With this we will contribute a new open-access chapter to the collection’s biography.

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