Torione Anticho Fori di Roma c. 1630 - 1635

This sanguine drawing of the Ancient Roman Forum was made by Claude Lorrain, most likely sometime in the mid-17th century. Lorrain’s evocative image reminds us that even in its ruined state, the Roman Forum continued to exert a powerful hold on the European imagination. In Lorrain's time, Rome was the apex of artistic pilgrimage, attracting artists, patrons, and intellectuals from across the continent. It was the place to absorb the lessons of antiquity and the Renaissance, and to forge an international career. We might consider this drawing in light of the artist's broader body of landscape paintings, which catered to elite collectors keen to hang idealized visions of the Roman Campagna in their stately homes. The Forum, of course, was also a literal building site, where new institutions sometimes arose on the foundations of the old. These buildings, drawings, and paintings are traces of the past, each one shaped by its own moment of production. We might consult guidebooks, letters, and inventories to reconstruct the original social context of these images and arrive at a richer understanding of its cultural significance.