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
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Title:The Theater of Marcellus, from the Piazza Montanara
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
Accession Number:2005.100.59
Inscription: Blindstamp on mount, BC: "MacPherson, Rome"; inscribed in pencil in blindstamp: "163"
[Paul Katz]; Gilman Paper Company Collection, New York, August 24, 1981
Palais de Tokyo, Paris. "Procédés, Procédés," October 7, 1987–November 30, 1987.
Musée d'Orsay. "L'invention d'un regard," October 2, 1989–December 31, 1989.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," May 25–July 4, 1993.
Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," August 7–October 2, 1993.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," June 19–September 11, 1994.
Carrousel du Louvre, Paris. "Constructed Views: Photography and Architecture," November 19, 1998–November 23, 1998.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 59," May 15–September 9, 2012.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photographs. "Paradise of Exiles: Early Photography in Italy," March 13–August 13, 2017.
Galassi, Peter. Before Photography: Painting and the Invention of Photography. New York: Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1981. fig. 64.
Apraxine, Pierre. Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company. Reeds Springs, Mo.: White Oak Press, 1985. pl. 71.
Heilbrun, Françoise. L'Invention d'un Regard (1839–1918). Paris: Musée d'Orsay, 1989. pp. 52, 155.
Hambourg, Maria Morris, Pierre Apraxine, Malcolm Daniel, Virginia Heckert, and Jeff L. Rosenheim. The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. pl. 76.
Robert Macpherson (British, Tayside, Scotland 1811–1872 Rome)
ca. 1860
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