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A Hall In An Assyrian Temple Or Palace, Restored From Actual Remains, And From Fragments Discovered In The Ruins

Austen Henry Layard

1849

watercolor

From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum

Romanticism Early 19th Century Interior

Dominant colour

A Hall In An Assyrian Temple Or Palace, Restored From Actual Remains, And From Fragments Discovered In The Ruins is a 1849 watercolor by Austen Henry Layard, a Romanticism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Who painted this?: Austen Henry Layard
When & what style?: 1849 · Romanticism
Where can I see it?: Victoria and Albert Museum

About this work

This watercolour by Layard shows a grand palace room from ancient Assyria. He painted it to show ruins he dug up at Nimrud. The huge man-headed bulls stand in place. Layard mixed real ruins with his own ideas in the painting. His book later printed this image as a lithograph. It helped people picture Assyria’s power long ago. Look next at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The story of this work

Overview

A watercolour by Austen Henry Layard, this work reconstructs the principal ceremonial room of King Ashurnasipal II’s palace at Nimrud, featuring man-headed winged bulls positioned as they were in the ninth century BC. Reproduced as a colour lithograph in Layard’s 1849 publication *The Monuments of Nineveh*, the image reflects his imaginative restoration of excavated ruins, though some details are later deemed inaccurate. The scene conveys the grandeur of the Assyrian Kingdom, aligning with biblical descriptions and sparking widespread interest in the civilization’s archaeological remains. The…

Read the full account in the museum source.