model building/structure
- Museum number
- 1919,1018.1
- Description
-
Painted wooden model of Etruscan tomb at Paestum, containing skeleton, vases and arms.
- Production date
- 1805 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 50.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Jenkins & Sloan 1996
Models made from cork were used since the Renaissance by architects and their patrons to illustrate projected designs and as convenient records of existing buildings. By the eighteenth century they had become popular as subjects for public exhibitions, and the repertoire was extended to include archaeological ruins. One such exhibition in London was the Classical Exhibition at 24 St Albans Street, Pall Mall, assembled from the life-long labour of Richard Dubourg. His show was terminated unexpectedly in April 1785, when a mock Vesuvius effect went wrong and spread fire to the rest of the collection. Sir William Hamilton's richly illustrated Campi Phlegraei (cat. no. 43) was a great influence in promoting the contemporary fashion for model volcanoes. He was also probably the first to have a model of an ancient Campanian tomb. Writing from Naples on 3 March 1793, Sir Charles Blagden reports how Hamilton showed him a model of a tomb, 'such as those in which the vases are found'. He goes on, 'It is an oblong trough of stone, with a roof of stones'.
This model shows a tomb excavated in one of the cemeteries outside Paestum in 1805, after Sir William's death. The tomb (now lost) was made from blocks of the local travertine stone, coated with stucco for painting on the inside. It dates to the fourth century BC, after the Greek settlement of Poseidonia (later Paestum) had been taken over by Lucanians, a local Samnite people. The model reveals the style of the wall-painting to have been typically Lucanian and the armour (painted paper), especially the belt around the waist, is Samnite. Such vases as were actually found in the tomb would have been of local Paes-tan manufacture, but here the modeller has supplied a series of miniatures in terracotta painted with details copied from vases of various schools and periods.
Three models of similar tombs, including a larger version of this one, are to be found in Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. There were originally four, but one was recorded as damaged in 1837 and has since disappeared. Soane placed his models in the 'Crypt', where they accompanied other sepulchral monuments, principally the Egyptian alabaster sarcophagus of Sety I. It is thought that Soane's models were made by Domenico Padiglione, who from around 1804 made models for the Royal Museum at Naples. This model, however, may be attributed to one 'Bramante', who is said to have been the maker of another version of the same tomb previously displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
LITERATURE: Singleton Abbey, sale cat. 13 October 1919 and six following days, lot 739; for cork models in general, see the exhibition catalogue Rom über die Alpen tragen. Fursten sammeln Antike Architektur: Die Aischaffenburger Korkmodelle (Bayerische Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlosser, Garten und Seen, 1993); for cork models in London, see Altick, pp. 114f; for Soane's cork models see Richardson, also Eisner, pp. 172-3; for Soane's model of the 'hypogeum Montserisi Rossignoli' at Canosa, see Mazzei, p. 130, fig. 42.
- Location
- On display (G1)
- Acquisition date
- 1919
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1919,1018.1