The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by John Martin
© John Martin The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum 1821. Oil on canvas © Tate
Image Details
- Title:
- The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum
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- Artist:
- John Martin
- Product code:
- JOHMAR004
- Edition type:
- Open edition
- Publisher:
- Tate
- Copyright:
- © John Martin The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum 1821. Oil on canvas © Tate
About
The Conservation of The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum
In the early hours of the 7th January 1928, the Tate Gallery experienced a disastrous flood. The Thames embankment ruptured, and waters surged into the basement and lower galleries, submerging significant portions of the library, archive and art collections. John Martin’s The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum was one of the pictures badly damaged. The artist’s reputation was as its lowest ebb, and the work was dismissed as ‘completely ruined’.
When the painting was rediscovered decades later about one-fifth of the canvas was missing entirely and the surviving fragments suffered from numerous tears, flaking paint and obscuring layers of dirt and discoloured varnish. Consequently, recent conservation treatment initially focused on stabilising the remaining portions and removing the discoloured varnish.
The missing part of the picture was more of a challenge. Unusually, we have Martin’s own replica (also on display here) as well as his outline etching and a photographic record from before the flood. It was therefore possible to recreate the missing portion without resorting to compositional invention. A new piece of canvas was primed to imitate the original. The intention has been to ensure that the modern interventions remain apparent and reversible, while allowing the picture’s overall spatial construction and visual drama to be appreciated in full.
You can zoom in on the picture pre-conservation here.
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