Watercolour by Sir Wiiliam Gell

This watercolour by Sir William Gell is one of a series of records of the papyrus scrolls found in the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, made for George IV in the 1820s. Herculaneum was covered in ash and mud during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The villa - with over 1,800 carbonised scrolls - was unearthed in 1752. From c.1800 financial support for the unrolling and deciphering of the scrolls was provided by George IV, who was presented with around twenty examples. He passed six to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and seven to the British Museum (now Library), where they survive. The remainder were destroyed in the course of the complex unrolling process