Catacombs - Painting of a Peacock in the Jews' Catacomb, A.D. 150, in the Vigna Randanini

Photograph
1864-1870 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Photograph of a painting of a peacock in the Catacombe di Vigna Randanini (also known as the Jews' Catacomb), Rome. Taken with a magnesium flash.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleCatacombs - Painting of a Peacock in the Jews' Catacomb, A.D. 150, in the Vigna Randanini (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
mounted albumen print
Brief description
Photograph by Charles Smeaton of a painting of a peacock in the Jews' Catacomb, Rome, from a set commissioned by John Henry Parker, 1864-1870
Physical description
Photograph of a painting of a peacock in the Catacombe di Vigna Randanini (also known as the Jews' Catacomb), 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)
Subjects depicted
Place 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
561 - John Henry Parker catalogue number
Collection
Accession number
61946

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Record createdJuly 1, 2009
Record URL
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