Catacomb of S. Pontianus - Painting of a Jewelled Cross, A.D. 858-867
Photograph
1866-1868 (photographed)
1866-1868 (photographed)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Photograph of a painting of a jewelled cross in the Catacomb of S. Pontianus, Rome. Taken with a magnesium flash.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Catacomb of S. Pontianus - Painting of a Jewelled Cross, A.D. 858-867 (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | mounted albumen print |
| Brief description | Photograph by Charles Smeaton of a painting in the catacomb of S. Pontianus, Rome, from a set commissioned by John Henry Parker, 1864-1870 |
| Physical description | Photograph of a painting of a jewelled cross in the Catacomb of S. Pontianus, Rome. Taken with a magnesium flash. |
| Dimensions |
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| Gallery label | In the 1860s, John Henry Parker of the British and American Archaeological Society of Rome began an ambitious project to photographically record the city’s principal monuments, art and architecture. He worked with a team of photographers, including Smeaton, whose early experiments with flash photography proved vital to revealing Rome’s underground catacombs. Smeaton used magnesium flares to illuminate the dark interiors and usually hidden features, including wall paintings.(May 2023) |
| Object history | This object is part of a series of over 3,300 photographs documenting the principal monuments, artworks and artefacts of Rome from the classical age to the 1600s. The photographs were taken between 1864 and 1879 under the direction of John Henry Parker, the founder of the British and American Archaeological Society of Rome, and many were published in his Archaeology of Rome (1874-1879). Parker employed local photographers including Adriano De Bonis, Filippo Spina, Carlo Baldassare Simelli, Francesco Sidoli, Filippo Lais and Giovanni Battista Colamedici, as well as a Canadian, Charles Smeaton. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a large collection of the photographs taken before 1870. |
| Production | photograph taken with magnesium light (an early form of flash created by burning magnesium wire) |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Association | |
| Bibliographic reference | Historical photographs : A catalogue of three thousand three hundred photographs of antiquities in Rome and Italy, with dates, historical or approximative, and a general index prepared under the direction of John Henry Parker, London, 1879 |
| Other number | 609A - John Henry Parker catalogue number |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 61997 |
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| Record created | July 1, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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