Tomb of Porsenna

Seymour Haden was the unlikely combination of a surgeon and an etcher. Although he pursued a very successful medical career, he is mostly remembered for his etched work as well as for his writings on etching. He was one of a group of artists, including James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Alphonse Legros (1837–1911), whose passionate interest in the medium led to the so-called etching revival, a period that lasted well into the twentieth century. The extolling of etching for its inherent spontaneous qualities reached its pinnacle during this time. While the line of the etching needle, Haden wrote, was "free, expressive, full of vivacity," that of the burin was "cold, constrained, uninteresting," and "without identity."

Trees at left; small figures at left on hill and at center on a street; buildings in background and at right.

"Identified as the Tomb of Porsenna from Pliny (Nat. hist, XXXVI, 19, 4) this architectural ruin in Chiusi, in the provence of Siena, is in fact a later Greek sacred structure or tomb with labyrinths. Porsenna was the Etruscan King of Chiusi in the late sixth century B.C.
The preliminary drawing, in the same direction as the print and graphed for translation to the plate, is in NYPL. Haden's journals at Glasgow University Library record his visit to the Tomb of Porsenna on June 13, 1844.
State I: A square ruin with pyramidal roof turrets strands in a landscape setting."
[Source: Schneiderman, p. 1]

"Trial Proof: (a) Only one impression- a touched proof-known, in the collection of Harris B. Dick. The original water-colour drawing is in the Lenox Library Collection, New York."
[Source: Harrington, p. 1]