Aqueduct of Nero 

Curator: This is Richard Wilson's pencil sketch, "Aqueduct of Nero," housed here at the Tate. It captures, with minimal strokes, the stark grandeur of Roman engineering. Editor: My first thought is its fragility. The medium, that soft pencil on paper, evokes a sense of fleeting observation, a captured moment. Curator: It's interesting to consider the aqueduct itself. Imagine the labor, the sheer manpower required to erect this structure. Editor: And the material sourcing! Think of the quarries, the transportation of massive stones...each mark, each line in Wilson's sketch represents immense physical effort, both in the aqueduct's construction and the artist's rendering. Curator: For me, it's about echoes across time. Wilson, an eighteenth-century artist, engaging with the remnants of a civilization centuries gone. Editor: Yes, and our engagement now. The drawing serves as a document, a point of access to understand and reflect on past infrastructures and their modern interpretations.