The fountain that hides a grudge

I love it when a masterpiece has a bit of spite baked into it, and the Trevi Fountain has plenty. While Nicola Salvi was building it, there was a barbershop right next door, and the barber never stopped complaining, about the noise, the crowds, the whole disruption to his business.

So Salvi did what any Baroque architect with a flair for the dramatic would do. He carved a stone vase into the design, tall enough to block the barber's shopfront from anyone standing in the piazza. Romans still call it the Asso di Coppe, the Ace of Cups, after the playing card it looks like. Salvi died in 1751, the fountain only half built, so he never even got to see it finished, let alone the barber's face when his shop vanished from the view.

I painted it in watercolour and ink, all that travertine stone and turquoise water. There's a poster and a postcard, both with a letter home if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Trevi Fountain, Rome · Travel Poster