NERO Landscape and architecture painter, pupil in Hamburg of Baron Rumohr, who enabled him to visit Italy ; after living several years in Eome settled in 1837 in Venice, where he met with great success, and painted many views of the city. Honorary member of Venice Academy. Works : Titian taking Leave of his Parents; Palazzo Coutariui Zaft'o ; At Noon in Palazzo Pisaui ; Buffa- loes drawing Marble Block through the Campagua, Schwerin Gallery ; Piazzetta by Moonlight ()(! times) ; Palazzo Guoro ; Drive to Festival on the Lido ; Before the Vatican ; Monte Cavallo by Moonlight ; Monte Circello with Procession of Vinta- gers ; S. Giovanni e Paolo, National Gallery, Berlin. His son Friedrich, in Rome, is an able landscape and marine painter. Works : Views of Lagoons from S. Lazaro ; Storm in Bay of Genoa ; Harbour of Venice ; Coast between Ancoua and Falconara (Jubilee Ex- ^ hibition, Ber- lin, 188G). All gem. d. Biog., xxiii. 435;D.Kunts- bl. (1850), 23G; (18,12), 43G; (1853), 170; (185G), 335 ; (1857), 144; (1858), 2!), 247 ; Hamburg K. Lex., i. 177 ; Kunst-Chronik, xiv. 192 ; xviii. 7G5 ; Nag- ler, Mon., ii. 18, 831 ; Wurzbach, xx. 18G. NERO, Emperor of Rome, amateur paint- er and sculptor, A.J>. 41-54. He is said to have had considerable proficiency both in painting and in modelling. Suet., Nero, 52 ; Dio Chrys. Orat., 71, 9. NERO AND LOCL'STA. See Locusta. NERO PERSECUTING CHRISTLVNS, Wilhelm von Kaiilbacli. The Emperor, clad as Apollo, is standing on a terrace before his palace, lifting with his right hand a gob- let ; a favourite slave, kneeling, holds his lyre, while a host of voluptuous Greek and Roman women come with wreaths and cym- bals to proclaim him their god and to sac- rifice to him ; at his right, Tigellinus, pre- fect of Rome, applauds him ; but serious j men around him, of old-republican morals and patriotic spirit, look on with grief and anger. In the foreground, the martyrdom of Christians, whom Nero has charged with the firing of Rome. In the middle group, a man, supposed to be St. Peter, is tied head downwards on a cross, which Nero's attendants are about to erect, while some of the saint's adherents passionately kiss his face and hands. In the group at the left, a martyr, dressed in skins, is tied to a pole, to be covered with pitch and lighted like a torch, his wife raising their child to him for a farewell kiss. The central figure in the group at the right is St. Paul, who has man- fully risen against the horrors, while a lictor already lifts the executioner's axe against him ; others around him are plunged in sorrow ; some girls point with passionate gestures towards another who, about to as- cend the steps to join the idolaters, is seized with sudden shame, and endeavours to cover her nude form ; the German warriors near them observe as hostile an attitude as the noble Romans above, one of them looking pensively on St. Paul. Ulustr. Zeitg. (1874), i. 9 ; Laud und Meer (1874,) i. 15. NERO ON RUINS OF ROME, Karl von Piloti/, National Museum, Pesth ; canvas, H. 15 ft. X 20 ft. Rome having been devas- tated by fire for six days, the Emperor goes forth to view the burning ruins ; crowned with a rose wreath, bloated and debauched, yet grand in form, he stalks through the mid-picture, on the Palatine, preceded by slaves and torch-bearers, and followed by favourites of both sexes. A company of prse- toriau guards fill the far corner of the can- vas ; in the middle foreground lies a group of dead Christian martyrs, around whom are broken and up-torn mosaics, crumbling and calcined walls, and black, charred raf- ters. Painted in 18G1 ; exhibited at Interna- tional Exhibition, London, 18G2. Bought for 10,000 florins by Count John Palaffy, Press- burg, who presented it to the National Mu- seum of Pesth in 1872. Art Journal (1862), 183 ; (18G5), 297 ; Pecht, D. K., iii. 220. 338
