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The Forest Fire

Image credit: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

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Renowned for his originality and inventiveness, Piero di Cosimo painted many 'spalliera' panels with themes from classical literature. Dating from c.1505, this painting may have been one of a series described by Vasari as painted for Francesco del Pugliese. Two other panels of 'The Hunt' and 'The Return from the Hunt', now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, are thematically related but seem to have been painted in the 1490s. All three are concerned with the history of early man, inspired by passages from Book 5 of 'De Rerum Natura' by Lucretius (98 BC–c.55 BC), who traces the origins of life on earth and the birth of community life, emphasising the role of fire as a catalyst for change. The New York pendants vividly depict a primitive world, while this painting could have been made for a different patron, taking up particular themes relating to more advanced stages of human life.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Oxford

Title

The Forest Fire

Date

c. 1505

Medium

oil on panel

Measurements

H 71.2 x W 202 cm

Accession number

WA1933.2

Acquisition method

Presented by the Art Fund, 1933

Work type

Painting

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Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Beaumont Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 2PH England

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