About this artwork
Giorgio Sommer was one of the most successful and well-known photographers of southern Italy in the nineteenth century, and his images served archaeologists and tourists alike. He was commissioned by Giuseppe Fiorelli, the first archaeologist to bring scientific method to the excavations at Pompeii. Under Fiorelli, archaeological evidence was to be documented at the site of its discovery, a dramatic shift from the antiquarian emphasis on aesthetics toward an anthropological appreciation of social and material context. Thus cavities created by decomposed organic matter were filled with plaster to give a more complete sense of a person’s form, and figures of Pompeians (including, in at least one remarkable case, a dog) were revealed at the moment of their deaths.
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Status
- On View, Gallery 10
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Giorgio Sommer
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Title
- Plaster Cast of Body, Pompeii
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Place
- Italy (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1880
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Medium
- Albumen print
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Dimensions
- Image/paper: 27 × 37.5 cm (10 11/16 × 14 13/16 in.); Mount: 39.9 × 50.3 cm (15 3/4 × 19 13/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of W. Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg
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Reference Number
- 2011.700
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/210676/manifest.json
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
