Lightning flashes and statues topple over a Pompeii street as families flee Vesuvius in AD 79, each group a small drama of rescue or loss. Bryullov set it on the Street of the Tombs, which he had studied on site, and joined classical figures to Romantic colour. Acclaimed in Rome, Milan and Paris, it made him the first Russian painter with a European reputation.
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At the left of the fleeing crowd, Bryullov painted himself carrying a box of painting materials on his head.
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