The Excavations at Pompeii, 1799 (oil on canvas)

The dry heat in this sunny 1799 view of the partially-excavated ruins at Pompeii (only 40 years after its re-discovery, since it was submerged in ash from the devastating eruption of Vesuvius in AD79) is papable. Castellamare and the Sorrentine Peninsula are seen in the distance and in the centre is the Theatre with the Triangular Forum to the left and adjacent to it are the Barracks of the Gladiators and the Quadriporticus. On the extreme left is the Odeum or small theatre, and on the right, behind its screening wall, is the best preserved and worst plundered of the shrines of Pompeii, the Temple of Isis. This is one of nine paintings at Attingham Park in Shropshire by Hackert who was a favourite of King Ferdinand IV and his Austrian wife Maria Carolina at the court of Naples and the subject of a biography by Goethe. It hangs in one of the earliest top-lit picture galleries in an English house designed by John Nash for Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick (1770 -1832). Described in the 1827 bankcruptcy sale catalogue as: A View of the Ruins of Pompei surrounded by Vineyards, the Lake of Salerno in the distance, bounded by lofty mountains and in the foreground, adorned with cattle and figures, it was bought in with its pair, then called the Lake of Arno, by William Noel-Hill, later 3rd Lord Berwick (against competiition from John Soane), who was concerned that the Attingham series of Hackerts remain together.