Exhibitions and Talks 

A unique chance to see the vast and vividly colourful artwork, on loan from Tate, and discover its Somerset connections.

As part of the Museum of Somerset’s popular Spotlight Loan programme, Tate will be lending the artist John Martin’s extraordinary painting ‘The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum’ (1822).

It is a vast and vividly colourful work which caused a public sensation when it was first shown at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1822. The oil painting depicts the disaster that famously beset the sister cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum when the volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August AD 79. Taking as its vantage point the shores of the town of Stabiae, on the opposite side of the Bay of Naples, the picture shows fleeing survivors struggling on to dry land. Herculaneum is in the distance to the left, smothered with lava; Pompeii is laid out in sufficient detail to be able to identify specific buildings, most prominently the circular ‘Great Theatre’ and the Basilica. Mount Vesuvius is shown in the early stages of the eruption, the glow of lava colouring the whole landscape a vivid red, while the sky is convulsed by billowing ash clouds and shredded by lightning.