Molly Swetnam-Burland's book sets out to reintegrate the Egyptian and Egyptianizing artworks from Roman Italy into the broader history of Roman art, considering them as Roman cultural products. Characterizing earlier scholarship on these artworks as polarized between those who treat Egyptian-style material culture either as ‘religious’ or ‘exotic’/decorative (12), she seeks instead to show that it can, in some circumstances, be both and more. Rather than offering a comprehensive catalogue of Egyptian and Egyptian-style objects, many of which already exist, S.’s approach is to proceed via case studies, with a particular emphasis on object biographies.

The focus varies widely, from Augustus’ importation of Egyptian obelisks to Rome to the Sanctuary of Isis at Pompeii, with a final case study on representations of the land of Egypt. The advantages of this approach are that the author is able to show that Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects held multiple messages in a variety of different contexts. The disadvantage is that it is harder to draw together these insights into a single overall picture; while S. rightly stresses the eclecticism of Roman responses to Egypt, an expanded conclusion might usefully have drawn out the main themes in more detail and also considered the extent to which we can see chronological change.

The Introduction sets out the approach and central arguments of the book. While S. does mention here the later history of aegyptiaca in Western culture (6–7), and some of the approaches which have been taken to the material she studies (12), much of the detail is confined to the notes. A more comprehensive account of the past scholarship, and the niche into which this book fits, would have been welcome.

Ch. 1 continues from the Introduction in further fleshing out the author's approach. In particular, it considers both the producers and the users of Egyptian and Egyptian-style objects in Rome in their wider cultural context. The first section looks at the importation of Egyptian objects into Italy as part of the wider trade in luxury goods, before moving in the second section to the production of Egyptian-style objects within Italy itself. There is an interesting discussion here of the extent to which the production of hieroglyphics relied on Egyptian specialists but also seems to accommodate and reflect Roman epigraphic conventions. The final section considers the incorporation of Egyptian-style motifs as part of the eclecticism of Roman art.

Ch. 2 focuses on Augustus’ erection of obelisks in the city of Rome, and the impact these would have had on their Roman viewers, containing an important analysis of the later descriptions offered by Pliny the Elder and Ammianus Marcellinus. The pyramid tomb of Gaius Cestius is also included in the chapter as proof of the Roman taste for an Egyptian aesthetic, but seems somewhat out of place, and might better have been included in the previous chapter.

Ch. 3 moves to Pompeii, with a detailed analysis of the Sanctuary of Isis, concentrating on how the visual form and decoration of the sanctuary would have been understood both by initiates and by the broader population of Pompeii as a whole. Through analysis of the inscriptions and electoral programmata from the sanctuary, S. shows that the sanctuary and its members belonged fully to the wider civic culture of the town, adopting similar dedicatory and patronage practices to those seen elsewhere. The second half of the chapter offers a detailed reading of the paintings of Io found in the ekklesiasterion of the sanctuary, suggesting that they could appeal to the general populace of the town, as well as holding more specific relevance for Isiac initiates.

Ch. 4 considers Roman attitudes to and beliefs about the land of Egypt itself, as reflected in particular in the Praeneste Nile mosaic, the statue of the Nile in the Vatican, and Juvenal's Satire 15. As in the previous chapters, S. productively combines art and text to show how both played off against their Roman audience's knowledge of, and preconceptions about, Egypt.

S.’s analysis of Egyptianizing art firmly integrates it into the study of Roman art more generally. Given this, it would have been useful to have some more explicit analysis of how her study fits into the wider historiography of Roman art, as well as redressing the position of aegyptiaca per se. I saw many parallels with the Roman appropriation of Greek art and culture. Some consideration of this wider picture, perhaps considering how attitudes to Egyptian antiquities and new Egyptian-style objects map onto, or differ from, the parallel appropriation of Greek artworks and artistic styles, as well as the extent to which Roman culture was intrinsically shaped by conquest and the cultures it encountered, would have been a welcome addition to either the Introduction or Conclusion, helping to signal more clearly the undoubted importance of this book for the wider field of Roman cultural history.

The author is to be applauded for showing how important it is to think of Roman material culture as precisely that — Roman — serving the needs and concerns of its Roman patrons, despite its historical or stylistic origins. She succeeds in her aim of integrating Egyptian-style objects into the wider history of Roman art, and in showing that context matters, with objects’ meanings changing along with their owners and viewers. It is an important contribution to our wider understanding of the extent to which Roman culture in general, and Roman art in particular, was forged in the crucible of appropriation.