Pollice Verso is an 1872 oil painting by the French academic painter Jean-Leon Gérôme, set in the Colosseum of ancient Rome. It shows a crowd of spectators, including the Vestal Virgins, turning their thumbs down toward a triumphant murmillo gladiator standing over a defeated retiarius, who raises two fingers in a plea for mercy. The painting popularized the pollice verso gesture as a symbol of a crowd deciding a beaten fighter's fate, and it went on to inspire the thumbs-down gesture used in the 2000 film Gladiator.
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Source Pollice Verso (Gérôme) (Wikipedia)
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Source Pollice Verso (Gérôme) (Wikipedia)
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It is now in the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona
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1. Pollice Verso (Gérôme) (Wikipedia)
Lead section
Pollice Verso (from Latin: with a turned thumb) is an 1872 painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, featuring the eponymous Roman gesture directed to the winning gladiator. The thumbs-down gesture in the painting is given by spectators at the Colosseum, including the Vestals, to the victorious murmillo, while the defeated retiarius raises two fingers to plead for mercy.
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Oil on canvas
Lead sentence
Pollice Verso (from Latin: with a turned thumb) is an 1872 painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, featuring the eponymous Roman gesture directed to the winning gladiator.
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is an 1872 painting
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