Artwork Information

Giovanni Volpato (born Bassano del Grappo 1735, died Rome 1803) was a noted antiquarian, excavator and manufacturer of decorative classical sculptures, but his principal fame and success came from his activities as an engraver of antiquities and archaeological sites for the tourist market in late eighteenth-century Italy.

Working with the Swiss painter Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros (born Moudon 1748, died Lausanne 1810), Volpato produced many engravings of the complex of temples at Paestum, a major classical Greek city in southern Italy. Images of the ruins, which were difficult to access in the eighteenth century, were a subject of great interest. Their subjects, including the present scene, are most likely based on drawings commissioned in the 1750s by the Spanish military engineer Count Gazola (1698–1780).

In the 18th century it was mistakenly believed that the three ancient Greek temples in Paestum originally constituted a gymnasium, public basilica, and portico. The ‘gymnasium’ that seen here is in fact the first Temple of Hera, the oldest in the temple complex (circa 550 BC). This imaginative rendering of the grassed interior of the ruined temple captures the striking scale and geometry of the famous Doric colonnades framed against the sky. In the foreground small figures in 18th century dress sit in contemplation of the ruined grandeur or point out features of interest to their companions.