The Temple of Neptune in Pestum

Art Historical Context

Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints collection, where *The Temple of Neptune in Paum* (1826) captures the timeless grandeur of ancient architecture. This lithograph, by French artists Louis Léopold Boilly his son Jules Boilly in collaboration with printer François Séraphin Delpech, depicts the Doric columns of the Temple of Neptune—one of three remarkably preserved Greek temples at Paestum, an ancient city in southern Italy founded around 600 BCE. Measuring 12 3/8 x 8 11/16 inches, the print shows the temple's sturdy stone pillars and includes figures of men, evoking the site's allure for 19th-century travelers. Lithography, a revolutionary technique perfected in the early 1800s, allowed Boilly's precise, realistic style—rooted in his realist genre painting—to be reproduced affordably and in fine detail directly from a prepared stone. This medium democratized access to classical wonders during the Romantic era, when Europe's elite embarked on Grand Tours to Italy, fueling a cultural revival of antiquity amid Napoleonic rediscoveries. Paestum's temples, rediscovered in the 18th century, symbolized enduring Greek engineering and inspired neoclassical movements. Boilly's work offers visitors a window into that fascination, blending historical reverence with artistic innovation. A gift from The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, it reminds us how prints preserved the past for future generations.

About the Artist

Louis Léopold Boilly|Jules Boilly|Delpech · 1761–1845

Comment on works: Genre; Portraits