View of the Cloaca Maxima, Rome

Europäische Grafik 1260–1800, 1814

A person, tiny in scale, walks along a path between two grassy mounds that lead back to a band of brown buildings that span the width of this horizontal landscape painting. The grassy mounds are covered with frosty and spring green growth, with a few patches of ivory-white dirt. The person wears a brimmed, straw-yellow hat, a long-sleeved white shirt, knee-length brown pants over white stockings, and a red garment slung over one shoulder. He walks away from us toward a tunnel that runs alongside the right-hand mound, into the heart of the town beyond. The buildings are oatmeal brown, beige, or muted red, and have gray roofs. We can see into a few buildings closest to us. To our left, strokes of parchment brown suggest laundry hung across an open space inside one structure. Plants grow over the wide central arch of a partially ruined building beyond this, also to our left. Other buildings are stacked and staggered along the rolling hills into the distance. In the top third of the painting, thin white clouds float across a pale blue sky.
Artist
Europäische Grafik 1260–1800
Date
1814
Type
Painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
31.8 × 47.4 cm
Collection
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Licence
Public domain, CC0

Image description

A person, tiny in scale, walks along a path between two grassy mounds that lead back to a band of brown buildings that span the width of this horizontal landscape painting. The grassy mounds are covered with frosty and spring green growth, with a few patches of ivory-white dirt. The person wears a brimmed, straw-yellow hat, a long-sleeved white shirt, knee-length brown pants over white stockings, and a red garment slung over one shoulder. He walks away from us toward a tunnel that runs alongside the right-hand mound, into the heart of the town beyond. The buildings are oatmeal brown, beige, or muted red, and have gray roofs. We can see into a few buildings closest to us. To our left, strokes of parchment brown suggest laundry hung across an open space inside one structure. Plants grow over the wide central arch of a partially ruined building beyond this, also to our left. Other buildings are stacked and staggered along the rolling hills into the distance. In the top third of the painting, thin white clouds float across a pale blue sky.

Europäische Grafik 1260–1800