(left) The Last Days of Pompeii, firework display, 1885, and (right) an account of an earlier Pompeii themed pyrotechnic event at Manhattan Beach, published in the New York Times, March 20th 1882.
For more on this subject see Yablon, N., "A Picture Painted in Fire": Pain's Reenactments of The Last Days of Pompeii in Antiquity Recovered – The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum, eds. Gardner Coates, V.C. and Seydl, J.L., 2007 (189-207).
