Late antiquity could have retained its negative reputation as the ‘dark ages’, a period of crisis that led up to the fall of Rome,1 had it not been for the rich variety of late-antique artworks in European collections.2 Some of these objects, despite what were thought of as coarse forms and a lack of evident aesthetic appeal, nevertheless produced powerful effects on later viewers. A sequence of great discoveries related to late antiquity in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and deeper investigations into what was already known, contributed to a field initially built up primarily around available museum objects and fragmentary examples of visual culture.