Roman street scene with the ancient Cestius Pyrmid on the background.

The Pyramid of Cestius (Piramide Cestia) situated in Rome at Porta Sn Paolo and is a striking, ancient Roman pyramid built between 18 and 12 BC as a tomb for the wealthy magistrate Gaius Cestius. Standing 36.4 meters (120 feet) tall, it is famously integrated directly into the ancient Aurelian Walls.

Our painting was executed in 1877 by good-listed Swiss landscape and genre painter Johann Zahnd (1854 in Wahlern (today Schwarzenburg - 1934 in the same place). 

After studying painting in Switzerland and Florence, he settled in Rome in 1872. There he worked as a landscape and genre painter. Besides views of ancient Roman monuments,  Zahnd painted landscapes and genre scenes depicting rural life in the Roman Campagna. In 1884, he took over the Roman studio of the Italian painter of Swiss descent, Hermann Corrodi.

In 1903, after 31 years in Rome, Zahnd returned to Bern, where he lived until 1907. He spent the rest of his life in his home village of Wahlern.

Inscription: signed and dated (18)77, lower left.

Technique: oil on canvas. Antique wood frame.

Measurements: unframed w 15" x h 11 1/8" (69 x 40,5 cm); framed w 22 1/2" x h 18 1/2" (82 x 53,5 cm)

Condition: in  good condition, old professionally relining of original canvas.