  About the Artwork
  
  
  Giovanni Paolo Panini was known for his views of celebrated sites in Rome, the city in which he lived and worked. ​T​he Colosseum, the elliptical amphitheater in the center of Rome​,​ was undoubtedly the most famous site in the city. I​n ancient times, it​​ ​was used for gladiator contests, animal hunts, executions, and even mock sea battles. By the eighteenth century, its travertine and concrete walls had partly crumbled, but it remained the largest standing amphitheater in the world. Panini has cleverly introduced touches of local color — conversing figures, a dog, a woman on horseback​ ​—​ ​that underline the monument’s enormous scale but also its omnipresence in daily Roman life.​ Panini’s companion painting of the Forum, located just west of the Colosseum, is also in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts.​
  
  
  Title
  View of the Colosseum
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1735
  
  Artist
  Giovanni Paolo Panini
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1691-1765
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Italian
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 29 3/16 × 53 inches (74.2 × 134.6 cm)
  Framed: 38 1/4 × 24 7/16 × 4 3/8 inches (97.2 × 62 × 11.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Painting
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Edgar B. Whitcomb
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  47.94
  
  
  Copyright
  Public Domain
