Topham specialised in scenes of Italian life and history. This example belongs to a long tradition of interest in Pompeian subjects, going back to the discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii in the mid-eighteenth century but stimulated for the Victorians by the publication of Bulwer-Lytton's novel The Last Days of Pompeii in 1834. Recent precedents for Topham's picture included The Escape of Glaucus and Ione from Pompeii (1860) by Paul Falconer Poole, sold in these Rooms on 13 March 1992, lot 90; Alma-Tadema's researches at Pompeii in 1863; and E.J. Poynter's famous Faithful unto Death (1865) at Liverpool.