The Last Day of Pompeii

For other uses, see The Last Days of Pompeii (disambiguation).

The Last Day of Pompeii

Artist	Karl Briullov
Year	1830-1833
Type	Oil-on-canvas
Dimensions	465.5 cm × 651 cm (183.3 in × 256 in)
Location	State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Soviet Union stamp from 1968 (CPA #3704) with The Last Day of Pompeii.

The Last Day of Pompeii is a large canvas painted by Russian artist Karl Briullov in 1830-33.

Briullov visited the site of Pompeii in 1828, making numerous sketches depicting the AD 79 Vesuvius eruption. The completed canvas was exhibited in Rome to rapturous reviews of critics and thereafter transported to Paris to be displayed in the Louvre. The first Russian artwork to cause such an interest abroad, it gave birth to an anthologic poem by Alexander Pushkin. British author Walter Scott declared that it was not an ordinary painting but an epic in colours.

Detail of a woman (Yuliya Samoylova).

The topic is classical, but Briullov's dramatic treatment and generous use of chiaroscuro render it farther advanced from the neoclassical style. In fact, The Last Day of Pompeii exemplifies many of the characteristics of Romanticism as it manifests itself in Russian art, including drama, realism tempered with idealism, increased interest in nature, and a zealous fondness for historical subjects.

The commissioner, Prince Anatole Demidov, donated the painting to Nicholas I of Russia who displayed it at the Imperial Academy of Arts for the instruction of young painters. To present the painting to a wider audience the canvas was transfered to the Russian Museum for the museum's opening in 1895.

Briullove included a self portrait in the upper left corner of the painting, under the steeple, one of the several foci in the picture, but not easy to identify.

Sources

• (Russian) Верещагина А.Г. Художник. Время. История. Очерки русской исторической живописи XVIII — начала XX века. – М.: Искусство, 1973. С. 30—32.