Robert Seldon DuncansonÉtats-Unis, 1821–1872Peut-on la contempler ?
Washington, États-Unis
Le propriétaire est connu. Si elle est exposée aujourd’hui, le musée ne le dit pas, et l’on ne nous a pas appris à deviner.
Robert Duncanson's patrons in Cincinnati sponsored his first trip to Europe in 1853, allowing him to participate in a rite of passage for American artists. He compared his skills with those of European painters and claimed, "Of all the landscapes I saw in Europe...I do not feel discouraged." Duncanson imagined Pompeii around the time of its first excavation in 1747, showing men in eighteenth-century costume admiring the ruins and searching for buried treasure. Such fanciful depictions were popular among nineteenth-century American patrons, who made the ancient city at the foot of Vesuvius a stop on their grand tours.
Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
Smithsonian American Art Museum