The Forum at Pompeii with Vesuvius in the Background  1841

Under a brilliant, clear blue sky, a sense of stillness and abandonment prevails in this scene, reinforced by creeping vegetation, grazing goats, and lizards scurrying across a dirt path. Behind the ancient city of Pompeii, Vesuvius silently looms, its presence serving as a terrifying reminder of the havoc it wrought in A.D. 79, when the city and its residents were buried ...