Ruins of the Colosseum
ca. 1772-76
Joseph Benoît Suvée, a Flemish artist who won the prestigious Prix de Rome, sketched these crumbling ruins during his time in Italy in the 1770s. The reddish-brown lines capture the Colosseum not as a majestic arena, but as a rugged landscape overtaken by nature, with massive boulders and wild vegetation reclaiming the ancient stone. This piece reflects the Neoclassical obsession with antiquity, where artists traveled to Rome to document the decay of the classical world, essentially creating 'ruin porn' for 18th-century tourists.
- Material
- paper
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