Description: outdoor; architecture; people; animal; military/war
Label Text: Giovanni Paolo Panini is known for his imaginative compositions of classical Roman architecture. His historical scenes are often set in idealized landscapes with ancient ruins, as seen here.
This painting tells the legendary story from 362 BCE when a great chasm opened in the Roman Forum. It could only be closed by sacrificing Rome’s greatest treasure, a conundrum that confused most Romans but was understood by the young soldier Marcus Curtius to be the bravery of its people. Marcus Curtius, here shown in full armor on his rearing horse, is about to sacrifice himself by leaping into the abyss.
Panini repeated this composition a number of times, probably after the first version now housed in the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, England, ca. 1730). The SCMA painting most closely related to one in the Louvre. The same subject, differently treated, can be seen in another painting in the collection by the nineteenth-century French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme.
Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1951.139 |