Fotoreproductie van een schilderij van Friedrich Perlberg, voorstellend de Tempel van Kom Ombo op het eiland Philae before 1905

This is a reproduction of a painting of the Temple of Kom Ombo on the island of Philae, made by an anonymous artist, and held at the Rijksmuseum. The original painting is by Friedrich Perlberg, though, so who knows what kind of process this image has been through. The colours are muted – sandy yellows, stone greys, and a pale, pale blue sky – with a real contrast between the crumbling ruins and the figures on horseback at the lower left. It’s hard to tell what tools were used to make the original painting. There’s a really interesting area where the broken columns meet the sky. The artist has paid so much attention to the texture of the stone, its rough edges and worn surfaces, really emphasizing the weight of history and time, a sense of something grand and ancient slowly falling apart. The sky looks scratched in, giving the feeling the whole scene is about to crumble. I’m reminded of Piranesi’s etchings of Roman ruins, but those works carry an aesthetic grandeur, whilst this image seems to be more about the melancholy passage of time.