Charles-Baptiste Schreiber
(Paris, 1847 – Paris, 1902)
Pompeii, the Way of the Tombs (Via dei Sepolcri)
Oil on canvas
H. 26 cm; W. 35 cm
Located and dated lower right
June 1875
Unsigned
Located in the northwestern suburbs of Pompeii, the so-called Way of the Tombs begins at the city gate and extends towards Herculaneum for nearly 250 meters. Apart from funeral ceremonies, the Pompeians enjoyed strolling among the tombs in the shade of the cypress trees, or sitting on the tombstones and playing dice or knucklebones.
In our painting, the viewpoint is from north to south; on the left, the junction with the Via Superiore is visible. In the background, the silhouette of the Herculaneum Gate stands out, providing entry into Pompeii proper, with Cicero's villa slightly to the right.
This view was rarely depicted by painters at the beginning of the 19th century, although Prosper Barbot and Caruelle d'Aligny made a few sketches of it, in 1821 and 1822 respectively; however, at the end of the century, it was very frequently chosen by photographers.
In 1843, Alexandre Dumas gave a charming description of it in *Le Corricolo*: "This street of tombs is a magnificent peristyle for entering a dead city; Then all these funerary monuments, placed on both sides of the consular road at the end of which the Pompeii Gate gapes open, not rising above the layer of sand that covered them, have remained intact as on the day they emerged from the artist's hands: only time has deposited upon them, in its passing, that beautiful dark hue, that varnish of centuries which is the supreme beauty of all architecture.
Our luminous painting, with its only horizon an immaculate blue sky covering an assemblage of buildings with almost geometric forms, evokes at first glance the plein air studies carried out by Corot and his friends in the years 1825-1830, and in particular Caruelle d’Aligny; it also bore an apocryphal red signature “COROT” in the lower right corner.
But its author, Charles-Baptiste Schreiber, was in fact a student of Edouard Brandon (1831-1897), the latter better known for his synagogue interiors and portraits of rabbis, but who stayed in Rome, Italy, between 1856 and 1863, and produced traditional scenes with luminous skies, with which the style of our work shares some reminiscences.
From humble origins, Schreiber used his artistic talents to produce "bread and butter" paintings between the ages of 11 and 15, his first teacher being his godfather. In 1862, he decided to pursue a more academic training by enrolling for six years at the École Nationale de Dessin (National School of Drawing), where he received guidance from the sculptor Pierre-Louis Rouillard. It was in 1869 that he became a student of Brandon, who guided him to his first success at the Salon of 1870 (he had already exhibited two portraits, including his own, in 1868), with a painting entitled "Pious Reading." This painting led to his meeting Léon Bonnat, who wished to become his teacher.
In 1873, Schreiber left for Italy to further his study of the masters, a stay that would last three years. Based in Rome, he visited the Naples region in the spring of 1875. Apart from our painting, we know of another view of Pompeii, dated May 31, 1875, and one of Capri, dated June 12, 1875. But it was picturesque and poetic Italian subjects, similar to Brandon's genre scenes, that he submitted to the Salons of 1874, 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1879. His career was now launched, and Schreiber would exhibit at every edition of the Salon until his death, more than fifty works in total, primarily genre scenes depicting clergymen, which placed him alongside painters such as Jean-Georges Vibert and Henri Brispot.