The Romans of the Decadence - Recreation

The original painting by Romanticism era French artist Thomas Couture depicts sculptures of famous Romans looking down upon the orgy happening in the foreground to contrast the past and the present. At the time, Thomas Couture thought that his people were turning into, as he described, degenerates. Couture himself quoted two lines from the Roman poet Juvenal, "Crueler than war, vice fell upon Rome and avenged the conquered world.”

This digital composite is comprised of 40 original photographs taken in-studio and outdoors at the Met Cloisters and the surrounding areas of Wall Street.