Historic Painting: “Pollice Verso” by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872.

Going back over the Historic Painting articles I’ve done, I was shocked to see that I have not, in fact, featured this one yet. I just assumed I did it long ago, because it’s on the short list for my number one favorite painting of all time (narrowly edged out by Manet’s “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère”). This one is called “Pollice Verso,” and it’s by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. As you can see, it’s a dramatic scene involving gladiators in the Colosseum in Rome, sometime at the height of the Roman Empire. “Pollice Verso” means “with a turned thumb” in Latin, and it is the famous thumbs-up, thumbs-down referendum that the Colosseum crowd rendered when a gladiator’s foe was badly wounded. You can see what’s going on here. The women in the box are the Vestal Virgins.