Object Details
Artist
Luigi Bazzani
Date
1910
Medium
Graphite and watercolor
Dimensions
Sheet: 13 7/8 × 18 1/2 inches (35.2 × 47 cm)
Frame: 22 1/2 × 25 7/8 inches (57.2 × 65.7 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired with funds from the bequest of Louise C. Stetter, in memory of W. Cornell Dechert, Class of 1928, and gift of the Estate of Charles Baskerville, Class of 1919, by exchange
Object
Number
2022.007
Between 1880 and 1915, painter and scenographer Luigi Bazzani traveled regularly to Pompeii, documen(…)
Between 1880 and 1915, painter and scenographer Luigi Bazzani traveled regularly to Pompeii, documenting its various villas and structures in watercolors as they emerged from excavation. Bazzani’s drawings guided post–World War II restoration work at Pompeii and still preserve many areas that would once again be lost to modern wartime destruction.
Bazzani’s attention to architectural detail harmonizes with Pliny’s own obsession with building materials and techniques, including the nature and geographical sources of various kinds of stone, and especially the manufacture of brick (35.171). The ruined column at left reveals a core of brick, veneered with plaster or cement painted to resemble marble; this recalls Pliny’s description of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, in which marble slabs were laid over brick (36.47). The column’s deep-red fresco decoration near the base is a vestige of the abundant color that adorned the structure in antiquity. This combination of materials perfectly illustrates Pliny’s statements about frugality versus luxury and the ability of humble materials to stand in for expensive ones.
Bazzani’s viewpoint seems to be from the passage at stage right (at the lower left of the photograph) onto the semicircular cavea where audience members sat.
(Andrew C. Weislogel, “Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder,” exhibition organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and Verity J. Platt, presented at the Johnson Museum January 21–June 11, 2023)
