Catacomb of S. Pontianus - Head of Christ, A.D. 858-867 | Smeaton, Charles | Parker, John Henry

On display

V&A South Kensington
Photography Centre, Room 100, The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery

Artist/Maker	Parker, John Henry (publisher) Smeaton, Charles (photographer)
Place of origin	Rome (photographed)

Photograph of a painting of the head of Christ in the Catacomb of S. Pontianus, Rome. Taken with a magnesium flash.

Object details

Categories	Photographs Archaeology Christianity Topography Photographs of Italy
Object type	Photograph
Title	Catacomb of S. Pontianus - Head of Christ, A.D. 858-867 (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques	mounted albumen print Photographic Paper Photography
Brief description	Photograph by Charles Smeaton of a painting of Christ in the Catacomb of S. Pontianus, Rome, from a set commissioned by John Henry Parker, 1864-1870
Physical description	Photograph of a painting of the head of Christ in the Catacomb of S. Pontianus, Rome. Taken with a magnesium flash.
Dimensions	Mount height: 26.8cm Mount width: 33.2cm
Gallery label	(May 2023) 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.
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)
Subject depicted	Catacomb
Association	British and American Archaeological Society of Rome
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	607A - John Henry Parker catalogue number
Collection	Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number	61993

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Record created	July 1, 2009
Record URL	https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1097847/catacomb-of-s-pontianus--photograph-parker-john-henry/

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Catacomb of S. Pontianus - Head of Christ, A.D. 858-867

Object details

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