The Arch of Septimius Severus Seen from the East

Art Historical Context

This delicate pen-and-brown-ink drawing captures the Arch of Septimius Severus as seen from the east, one of ancient Rome’s most imposing triumphal monuments. Erected in 203 CE to celebrate the emperor’s victories in Parthia, the arch stood in the Roman Forum and remained a potent symbol of imperial power long after the empire’s fall. Created around 1594, the sheet reflects the enduring fascination that Northern European artists felt for classical ruins during the late Renaissance. Executed on a modest sheet measuring roughly 8 by 10½ inches, the drawing uses fine pen lines to record the arch’s architectural details with both accuracy and sensitivity. Such studies were prized by collectors and fellow artists, serving as visual records of antiquity that could be studied or adapted in larger paintings. The work’s attribution to artists including Matthijs Bril the Younger, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and Bartholomeus Breenbergh underscores the lively exchange of ideas between Flemish and Dutch draftsmen who traveled to Rome. Today housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the drawing invites viewers to imagine standing in the Forum more than four centuries ago, when the weathered stones still spoke eloquently of Rome’s vanished glory.

About the Artist

Bartholomeus Breenbergh|Jan Brueghel the Elder|Matthijs Bril the Younger · 1598–1657

Probably was apprenticed in Amsterdam. He was one of the early Dutch italianates, that is, northern artists who travelled to Italy in the 1620s and were inspired by southern landscapes. On his return, he settled in Amsterdam and his landscapes were developed as more severe and monumental, often with historical subjects; strongly influenced by the Pre-Rembrandtists. Comment on works: Landscapes; Ru...