The Pompeian Bath (1861), created by the Italian painter Domenico Morelli, depicts a group of women relaxing and interacting in a luxurious bathhouse of Pompeii, which was buried under tons of volcanic ash due to the disastrous volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 BC.

The exquisite painting captures the opulence and intimacy of the ancient bathhouses, known for their intricate decorations and social importance in Roman culture. The painting is also emblematic of the interest of the artist in classical history, and shows how he used the rediscovery of Pompeii as a source of inspiration. In fact, the excavation of Pompeii, which began in the mid-18th century, inspired many artists of the 19th century, who reconstructed several scenes from the city's daily life before its destruction by the ravaging volcanic eruption, which turned it into a dead city.

Born to a poor family in Naples on 4 August 1823, Domenico Morelli was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Naples in 1836, and later won a scholarship to study in Rome in 1848. His early works were based on the medieval legendary stories, but after his visit to Florence in the 1850s, he turned to romantic and historical themes, and produced them in a veristic style, a style of portraiture that attempts to depict a true likeness of an individual, influenced by the historian Pasquale Villari and Hayez.

By the mid-1860s, he became one of the best-known Italian painters of the times for his realistic treatment of the romantic subjects, marked by an intense, dramatic treatment of the subject, as well as his bold rendering of light and shadow with the help of blended colours. However, he became fascinated and interested to the religious, mystical and supernatural themes connected to the Christianity, Jewish and even Islamic traditional sources, after he became a professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence, locally known as Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, in 1868.

In his Pompeian Bath (1861), Domenico Morelli has carefully composed the scene of a bathhouse with women in various stages of bathing or dressing, surrounded by classical architecture of the bathhouse. His mastery of creating light and shadow added a dreamlike quality to the scene, creating a sense of both luxury and voyeurism for the viewers, as if glimpsing into a hidden world to enjoy a forbidden pleasure. The inflow of soothing light from the high window, highlighting the soft skin of the women and their flowing garments against the darker walls of the bathhouse, evidences the artist’s proficiency over the subject, while his precise detailing of the women’s postures and clothing reflects his skill in combining historical accuracy with artistic elegance.

In addition, the scattered flowers on the floor also add to the sensuous and relaxed atmosphere of the scene.

Apart from being a historical reconstruction, Pompeian Bath evidences Morelli’s fascination with the sensual and the serene aspects of life in ancient Rome. His ability to evoke both the historical significance and the aesthetic beauty of the past made him a prominent figure in 19th-century Italian painting. Serving as a reflection of the era’s growing interest in archaeology and the classical world, spurred by the continued excavation of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Pompeian Bath, regarded as an important work of Domenico Morelli, and celebrated for its historical imagination and detailed execution, is housed in The International Balzan Prize Foundation, locally known as La Fondazione Internazionale Balzan in Milan.