Roman antiquities are objects made in the Roman world, broadly from the rise of the Republic to the end of the Western Empire in the fifth century AD. They include sculpture, coins, glass, pottery, bronzes, jewellery, oil lamps, mosaics and inscriptions, found across a territory that stretched from Britain to North Africa and the Near East.
Collecting Roman antiquities was central to the eighteenth-century Grand Tour, when British travellers brought home marble busts, urns and fragments to furnish country houses, often heavily restored by Italian workshops to look complete. These collections in turn inspired the neoclassical taste of Robert Adam, Wedgwood and the Regency. Today the market ranges from modest terracotta oil lamps and iridescent glass flasks to important marbles. Provenance is critical: reputable dealers and auction houses require documented evidence that an object left its country of origin legally, ideally before 1970, and collectors should be wary of pieces without a clear history. Fakes and later copies are common, particularly of coins, bronzes and glass, so authenticity should be checked by a specialist. Old collection labels, inventory numbers and published references add both reassurance and value.
