Eruption of Mount Aetna in 1669 (1809): Art, History and Details

Eruption of Mount Aetna in 1669 (1809) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Thomas Sutherland (British, 1785–1838); Romagni (Italian?, 17th century?); Robert John Thornton (British, 1768–1837).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

With the eruptions of Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius in the 1700s, volcanoes entered the scientific and popular imagination of Enlightenment Europe. Scientists and philosophers theorized the origins of these spectacular displays; curious tourists visiting Italy wrote home with accounts of burning rivers and destroyed towns. The rediscovery of the ancient sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried by Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 CE, added further fuel to the fire. Attempting to capture the drama of these cataclysmic events, artists innovatively used the tonal range of aquatint and the white of the paper to evoke the dramatic effects of spewing hot lava and burning clouds of volcanic ash.

Object facts

• Title: Eruption of Mount Aetna in 1669
• Date: 1809
• Creator attribution: Thomas Sutherland (British, 1785–1838); Romagni (Italian?, 17th century?); Robert John Thornton (British, 1768–1837)
• Culture: England, 18th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: aquatint with engraving
• Dimensions: Image: 54.4 x 41.4 cm (21 7/16 x 16 5/16 in.); Sheet: 57.2 x 41.4 cm (22 1/2 x 16 5/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Aquatint
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1959.295

A detail from the museum

Active volcanoes like Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius were a popular destination for European tourists visiting Italy in the 1700s.

Collection credit

Gift of Robert Hays Gries

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.