An amusement

Turned up in the pages of reference 1, in a chapter about Renaissance pictures of ruins. The drawing detailed at reference 2. A book about our complicated relationship with the ruins of buildings. And at first glance you think 'just another old drawing of a ruin for an old gentleman's collection of same. The sort of thing 19th century old gentlemen used to collect'.

Detail, lower left

Detail, lower centre

But prompted by reference 1, one looks a bit closer, with the help of the fine imaging service provided by the Scots at reference 3. And one finds two bits of not so innocent content. One can only suppose that the old gentlemen also invested in magnifying glasses so that they could enjoy them.

The actual drawing is about 8 inches by 11, about the size it might display full screen on a laptop. But one needs to make allowance for the poor eyesight and poor lighting of the time. Plus the need to be able to take a proper look.

Not quite got to the bottom of why there were there, apart from spicing things up, beyond a suggestion that the ruins of the Colosseum were a well known haunt of the ladies of the night of sixteenth century Rome. A place which then, as now, attracted plenty of tourists. Closer reading of reference 1 - around page 138 of my handsome hardback edition from the University of Chicago Press - clearly indicated. Possibly helped along by a small glass of something that warms.

Reference 1: The Ruins Lesson: meaning and material in Western culture – Susan Stewart – 2020. 

Reference 2: The Colosseum - Hieronymus Cock - 1550.

Reference 3: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/. The place from where I have lifted the snaps above. Go alphabetical on the 'Art & Artists' page.