Paestum

Gérôme followed his teacher Paul Delaroche to Italy in 1843, where he was captivated by the antique ruins of Pompeii and the region further south, including Paestum. When he made his successful debut at the Paris Salon of 1847, he was already at work developing this composition featuring the east façade of the Temple of Hera, based on drawings he made on-site. He continued working on the subject over the next five years. He showed a variation at the Salon of 1849 (absent the water buffalo), and yet another version at the Salon of 1852, where it earned praise from the Goncourt brothers. This ambitious, large-scale preparatory drawing most closely relates to the earliest known oil sketch of 1847 (private collection). It is highly refined in technique, but also shows evidence of the artist’s working method with perspectival lines, corrections, and suggestive ideas.