Excavations

  • Map of the Bay of Naples (fragment)

    Antoine Alexandre Joseph Cardon (etcher and engraver)
    Belgium (Flanders), 1739-1822
    after Giuseppe Bracci (artist)
    Unknown, active Italy (Naples),1760-68

    Map of the Bay of Naples (fragment), 1772
    Etching and engraving

    Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959
    Prints and Drawings Collection, Archives and Special Collections
    1959.2959

  • Vesuvius

    Unknown (artist)
    Friedrich Justin Bertuch (publisher)
    Germany (Weimar), 1747-1822

    Vesuvius, 1793-94
    Hand-coloured engraving
    from Bild Bilderbuch für Kinder: enthaltend eine angenehme Sammlung von Thieren, Pflanzen, Blumen, Früchten, Mineralien, Trachten und allerhand andern unterrichtenden Gegenständen aus dem Reiche der Natur, der Künste und Wissenschaften [Picture book for children containing a pleasant collection of animals, plants, flowers, fruits, minerals, costumes and all kinds of other educational objects from the realm of nature, arts and sciences]

    Gift of Terence Lane OAM, 2024
    Prints and Drawings Collection, Archives and Special Collections
    2024.0112

  • A view of a sepulchral vault in the Vigna Casali on the right of the Via Appia.

    Carlo Labruzzi (artist and publisher)
    Italy (Rome),1748 1817; active Perugia
    William Palmer (publisher)
    Unknown, active England, 1782-1800

    A view of a sepulchral vault in the Vigna Casali on the right of the Via Appia./ Camera sepolcrale nella Vigna Casali a mano destra della Via Appia., c.1790-94/95
    Etching
    from Via Appia illustrata ab urbe Roma ad Capuam [The illustrated Appian Way from the city of Rome to Capua]

    Gift of Terence Lane OAM, 2024
    Prints and Drawings Collection, Archives and Special Collections
    2024.0136

  • The excavation of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii

    Unknown (engraver)
    after Pietro Fabris (artist)
    Unknown, active England and Italy (Naples), c.1756 84
    William Hamilton (author and publisher)
    England, 1730-1803; active Italy (Naples)

    The excavation of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii, 1775
    Hand-coloured engraving
    from Campi Phlegraei: Observations on the volcanos of the two Sicilies, as they have been communicated to the Royal Society of London

    Gift of Terence Lane OAM, 2024
    Prints and Drawings Collection, Archives and Special Collections
    2024.0113

    This engraving has been hand-coloured with gouache and would have originally been bound in a volume of Campi Phlegraei [Phlegraeian fields] when it was published by Sir William Hamilton in 1775. The illustrations were created by artist Pietro Fabris to accompany Hamilton’s text, which reproduced the letters he had sent to the Royal Society in London documenting his observations and commentary on Mount Vesuvius and the large volcanic caldera surrounding Naples, including the excavation of Pompeii.

    Fabris’ picturesque illustrations were so gorgeous in their vivid colour that they overshadowed Hamiton’s observations. However, in this and other publications Hamilton collaborated on, historian Hoah Heringhman credits the amateur volcanologist and collector with an early recognition that in the exchange between natural history and antiquarianism, and contemporary Neapolitan customs and manners, a continuity from the present to what he described as ‘a most remote antiquity’, or prehistory, was evident.