About the collection

This site is an ongoing collection of paintings of Mount Vesuvius in eruption from the eighteenth century. The majority of the paintings are by French artist Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1719-1799/1802), a Toulon-born painter who lived in Naples and specialized in images of Vesuvius during the late eighteenth century. Volaire’s paintings were typically commissioned by British aristocrats in Naples on the final stop of the Grand Tour–an artistic and cultural pilgrimage taken by young aristocrats to complement their classical and humanist education. The Grand Tour was popular from approximately 1660-1840.

Tourists were typically drawn to Naples because of their interests in the Ancient Mediterranean. Antique texts in Latin and Classical Greek were taught by private tutors to upper-class aristocrats across Europe, and objects from the newly-rediscovered cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum (buried 79 CE) were held in the private collection of the king of Naples for view. Moreover, Mount Vesuvius was particularly active in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the first time since late antiquity, allowing tourists to “experience” the same event Romans would have in 79 CE.