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Pollice Verso
Jean-Léon Gérôme · Realism & Academic
- Artist
- Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904)
- Date
- 1872
- Dimensions
- 96.5 x 149.2 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, United States
Pollice Verso, Latin for 'with a turned thumb', shows a victorious gladiator in a Roman arena standing over his defeated opponent and looking up to the crowd, which signals with turned-down thumbs that the loser should die.
A closer look
The scene is reconstructed with archaeological detail: the gladiator's armour, his helmet with a fish crest, the arena sand, the sunlit stands of the Colosseum. In the imperial box the emperor eats calmly, indifferent, while the Vestal Virgins in white robes lean forward eagerly, thumbs turned down, demanding death. The contrast between their sacred role and their bloodthirstiness is striking. Gérôme's vivid, almost photographic recreation of ancient Rome shaped how later generations imagined gladiator games.
