Virgil’s Tomb by Moonlight, with Silius Italicus Declaiming

Joseph Wright of Derby, celebrated for candlelit scenes and pioneering industrial subjects, spent two years in Italy in the mid-1770s, where the classical sites of the Grand Tour entered his repertoire. This 1779 view of Virgil’s tomb near Naples, with the Roman poet Silius Italicus declaiming before it, is among the moonlit landscapes that carried Wright’s fame beyond the town of his nickname.