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The Theater of Marcellus, from the Piazza Montanara

Robert Macpherson British, Scottish
by 1858
Not on view
Like geological strata laid bare to reveal the earth's development, the walls of the Theater of Marcellus bear witness to the various transformations of the ancient Roman monument. Begun by Julius Caesar and completed about 12 B.C. by Augustus, despoiled in the fourth century, fortified in the eleventh, and converted into a palace in the sixteenth, the theater housed apartments and the shops of artisans by the mid-nineteenth century. Macpherson's photograph presents the antique theater in fragmentary form, partially shrouded in shadow--less a field for archaeological investigation than for philosophical meditation on the weight of history on the lives of Rome's modern citizens.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Theater of Marcellus, from the Piazza Montanara
  • Artist: Robert Macpherson (British, Tayside, Scotland 1811–1872 Rome)
  • Date: by 1858
  • Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
  • Dimensions: Image: 41.9 x 27.4 cm (16 1/2 x 10 13/16 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2005
  • Object Number: 2005.100.59
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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The Valley of the Anio, with the Upper and Lower Cascatelle, Mecenas's Villa, and Distant Campagna, Robert Macpherson British, Scottish, Albumen silver print from glass negative
The Valley of the Anio, with the Upper and Lower Cascatelle, Mecenas's Villa, and Distant Campagna
Robert Macpherson
by 1858
Falls of Terni, Robert Macpherson British, Scottish, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Falls of Terni
Robert Macpherson
ca. 1860
Cloisters of St. Paul's, the Basilica, Outside the Walls of Rome, Robert Macpherson British, Scottish, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Cloisters of St. Paul's, the Basilica, Outside the Walls of Rome
Robert Macpherson
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Cascatelle at the Villa of Maecenas, Tivoli
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