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Baths of Trajan (Sette Sale, Villa Brancaccio, Rome)

ca. 1882
Not on view
The artist’s daughter, Helen Haseltine Plowden, named this watercolor Sette Sale, Villa Brancaccio when she donated it to the Museum in 1967. In a biography of her father, she described the villa as a "favourite resort" of the family and recalled joyful memories of her father sketching nearby ruins while the children played in the garden and the elders talked. The location depicted, however, is neither Sette Sale, a group of cisterns that supplied water to the Baths of Trajan (104–9 a.d.), or the Villa Brancaccio. It seems to instead represent the nearby ruins of the Baths of Trajan. Haseltine was likely attracted to the sense of decay of the ancient building as well as the verdant botanical overgrowth, which he rendered in vivid hues on blue paper, left bare to suggest the Roman sky.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Baths of Trajan (Sette Sale, Villa Brancaccio, Rome)
  • Artist: William Stanley Haseltine (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1835–1900 Rome)
  • Date: ca. 1882
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Watercolor, gouache, and charcoal on blue wove paper
  • Dimensions: 15 3/16 x 22 1/16 in. (38.6 x 56 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Roger Plowden, 1967
  • Object Number: 67.173.1
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

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Study from Nature, William Stanley Haseltine American, Oil on paper, American
Study from Nature
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New England Coast, William Stanley Haseltine American, Gray watercolor wash, black ink, and graphite on off-white wove paper, American
New England Coast
William Stanley Haseltine
Olevano (Campagna Romana), William Stanley Haseltine American, Pen, black ink, gray wash, and graphite underwriting on paper, American
Olevano (Campagna Romana)
William Stanley Haseltine
1858
Vahrn in Tyrol near Brixen, William Stanley Haseltine American, Watercolor and gouache on blue wove paper, American
Vahrn in Tyrol near Brixen
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Girgenti (The Temple of Juno Lacinia at Agrigentum), William Stanley Haseltine American, Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on blue paper, American
Girgenti (The Temple of Juno Lacinia at Agrigentum)
William Stanley Haseltine
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