Pietro Fabris

Pietro Fabris (active 1740 - 1792 in Naples) - The excavation of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Watercolor and pen and grey ink, partly with preparatory drawing in pencil, on wove paper (papier vélin), mounted on laid paper. (Before 1776). 22.2 x 34.2 cm (sheet size). Titled "Decouverte du Temple d'Isis à Poempeji" outside the image at top center, with legend and reference to "Hamilton. C.Phl. pl. XLI" (Campi Phlegraei). With a border in black brush. In a classicist frame with ornamental fitting (acanthus frieze) of gilt sheet brass. This watercolor shows the early excavations at the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. It is located in the south of the city, north of the theater, right next to the sanctuary of Zeus Meilichios and was the first building to be discovered there in 1764. The discovery of the temple complex surrounded by Doric columns caused quite a stir at the time, as it was not expected that an Egyptian goddess had been worshipped in the Roman province. Fabris was working for the British envoy and volcanologist Sir William Hamilton in Naples in those days when Mount Vesuvius was once again emitting columns of black smoke and causing the earth to tremble. The work served as a design for a copperplate engraving (no. 41) in Hamilton's three-folio publication Campi Phlegraei from 1760. In terms of cultural history, it is particularly relevant that the excavations in Pompeii took place just a few years after the devastating earthquake in Lisbon (1755). The natural disaster from late antiquity thus involuntarily gained topicality and served as a forewarning that entire regions could also fall victim to elemental violence in the future. - A crease in the right and lower margin outside the image. Paper somewhat thinned at upper left. Color layer in the lower margin slightly rubbed in one place in the middle. In good condition. Literature: Markus Bertsch (ed.), exhib.cat., Hamburger Kunsthalle, Unleashed Nature. Das Bild der Katastrophe seit 1600, Petersberg 2018, p. 220, cat. no. 98, with col. Ill. p. 222. Provenance: Private property, Baden-Württemberg. Taxation: Differential taxation (VAT: Margin Scheme)