Representations of Pompeii and Herculaneum over time
Text Chapter 3 "Discovery, Looting and Treasure Hunting"
pp. 25-27 "Early Representations of the Sites"
Pompeii remained mostly untouched until 1748, when a group of explorers looking for ancient artifacts arrived in Campania and began to dig. They found that the ashes had acted as a marvelous preservative: Underneath all that dust, Pompeii was almost exactly as it had been almost 2,000 years before. Its buildings were intact. Skeletons were frozen right where they’d fallen. Everyday objects and household goods littered the streets. Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread!
Many scholars say that the excavation of Pompeii played a major role in the neo-Classical revival of the 18th century. Europe’s wealthiest and most fashionable families displayed art and reproductions of objects from the ruins, and drawings of Pompeii’s buildings helped shape the architectural trends of the era. For example, wealthy British families often built “Etruscan rooms” that mimicked those in Pompeiian villas.
Today, the excavation of Pompeii has been going on for almost three centuries, and scholars and tourists remain just as fascinated by the city’s eerie ruins as they were in the 18th century
Jacob Phillip Hackert - View of Pompeii (1799)
P.H. Valenciennes - The Death of Pliny
Karl Pavlovich Briullov - The Last day of Pompeii (1833)
n 1843 Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote “The Last Days of Pompeii”. Many film versions have been made of this work including the following three from 1913, 1935 (the famous one that often pops up on TV late at night), and 1960.
Last Days of Pompeii (1913)
Last Days of Pompeii (1935)
Last Days of Pompeii (1960)
Theodore Chasseriau - Women in the Tepidarium (1853)
Edouard Alexandre de Sain - The Excavations of Pompeii (1866)
Paul Alfred de Curzon - Dream Amid the Ruins of Pompeii (1866)