Table ca. 1775–80 Italian, Rome Arriving from Dresden in Rome in 1755, the historian of classical art Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) stepped into a different, intensely stimulating world. The sophisticated international community settled there was experiencing a rapidly growing fascination with the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. As librarian to the collector Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692–1779), Winckelmann spent nine productive years in the intense study of Etruscan, Greek, classical Roman, and Egyptian works. He found them "in the galleries, vaults, and gardens of Roman palac

Table ca. 1775–80 Italian, Rome Arriving from Dresden in Rome in 1755, the historian of classical art Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) stepped into a different, intensely stimulating world. The sophisticated international community settled there was experiencing a rapidly growing fascination with the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. As librarian to the collector Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692–1779), Winckelmann spent nine productive years in the intense study of Etruscan, Greek, classical Roman, and Egyptian works. He found them "in the galleries, vaults, and gardens of Roman palaces, at Naples, and at the new excavations of Herculaneum."[1] During ancient Roman times, Egyptian monuments, such as obelisks and statues, and precious materials, such as alabaster, that formerly decorated the palaces of the pharaohs and temples on the banks of the Nile (for example, two panels on the Farnese table; see acc. no. –d) were brought as spoils to Rome and were used to embellish public places and the imperial residences. The constant presence of Egyptian art in Italy occasionally inspired artisans of later eras to incorporate its mysterious decorative motifs into their own inventions. Sometimes it was the mere citation of a detail, such as a sphinx's paw used to support a Renaissance cassone or cabinet.[2] And because there was no understanding of pharaonic traditions and no knowledge of the land of Egypt or of its ancient writing, European artisans and scholars were unable to distinguish pharaonic originals from imperial Roman copies or interpretations. On a large scale, the frescoes by Raphael and his studio for the Sala dell'Incendio in the Vatican and the Sala Egiziana in the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne are two of a few grand Italian interior decorations with Egyptianizing details that predate the Egyptomania that seized Europe in the wake of Napoleon's military campaign along the Nile in 1798 (see the catalogue entry for acc. no. ).[3]Wi

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