Neapolitan School Pompeii Fresco: Peacock & Basket

An original early 19th-century gouache painting, Neapolitan School, Pompeii Fresco: Peacock & Basket.

A gorgeously vivid Neapolitan School painting in opaque gouache, collected by a British traveller in the early-to-mid-19th century. The painting reproduces a fresco at Pompeii with a frieze design featuring a peacock.

Archaeological excavation work had begun at the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum around 1758, unearthing the Roman art that had laid buried since the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD. There was great popular interest in the new discoveries, and paintings by local artists served as souvenirs for Grand Tour travellers before the age of photography. Such images also proved influential on the work of neoclassical architects and decorative art designers.

Due to its preservation in an album, the colours and paint surface remain arrestingly vivid and crisp.

On thin wove paper laid down on original album backing paper.