Abstract :
Contemporary artists and art galleries have been
more active than museums in representing gay
and lesbian culture in public spaces in recent
decades. However same-sex relationships have a
long history that is reflected in the collections of
museums that have material from the classical
world. The culture of ancient Greece and Rome
was less inhibited about the representation of
sexual acts than many nineteenth-century museums
would have liked. Objects with frank images
of sexual acts were discreetly censored or hidden
away in secret cabinets. This article draws on one
object as a case study, a Roman silver cup dated to
the early years of the first century AD acquired by
the British Museum in 1999. The cup is decorated
with beautifully realised scenes in relief decoration
which show two pairs of males engaged in lovemaking,
each pair consisting of one older male and
a youth. The object could never have been acquired
or publicly displayed earlier in the twentieth
century. The vessel known as the Warren Cup
(after a previous owner) provides a provocative
stimulus for debate about male-to-male lovemaking.
Discussion of the meaning of the scenes, and
the possible reasons why they were represented
on such a high-status object, generates more
questions than answers. This uncertainty contributes
to the power of this object to open up debate.
This article will raise questions for educators and
students to consider about the Cup, an object
which society has only recently ceased to regard
as pornographic or obscene.
