Empires of Liberty: Athena, America, and the Feminine Allegory of the State

Museum of Art Museum of Art

Exhibition: Empires of Liberty: Athena, America, and the Feminine Allegory of the State

Dates:

Location:

Becker Gallery
The exhibition explores female personifications of the nation state from antiquity through the Enlightenment to today.

Selected Works

a partial statue of a draped figure made of stone

Statuette of Athena Parthenos, 450–400 BCE, marble. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. John Mead Howells, 1960.48

A silvery metal coin showing the profile of a person's head

Denarius of Porcius Laeca, 110–109 BCE, silver. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Mark M. Salton, 1989.58.59

A black and white etching showing many gesturing figures, some with fancy headgear, all with balloons of speech over their headsh

The Reconciliation between Britannia and her daughter America, 1782, etching, by William Humphrey. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Gift of Miss Susan Dwight Bliss, 1963.354

a drawing on brown paper showing a draped figure turned away from the viewer

Study for Pallas Athena, ca. 1893, pencil on tracing paper, by John LaFarge. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Museum Purchase, Laura T. and John H. Halford Jr. Acquisition Fund, 2022.4.

A bronze medal showing two standing figures facing left, one in a helmet, one with shackles

On the Armistice Medal, ’18, 1918, bronze by Charles L. Doman. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Mark M. Salton, 1978.32.22.a

A black and white photo showing various used items, including a photo of the statue of liberty with wire wrapped around its frame

Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn, photograph, 1938, by Ellen Auerback. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Gift, Joe Baio Collection of Photography, 2018.43.2

 

About

This exhibition explores female personifications of the nation state from antiquity through the Enlightenment to today. Through art, figures such as Athena, Roma, Columbia, and Britannia have become deeply embedded in Western cultural history. The adoption and use of these figures raise critical questions: Why did the patriarchal power structures of the Western nation state manifest as female forms, and how have women embodied and perpetuated the complex and often conflicting themes of liberty, justice, imperialism, and nationalism? By investigating how female personifications of the state have simultaneously defined and called into question Western cultural values, Empires of Liberty illustrates how the woman became the nation.

The exhibition is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowment.