File:Pompeii, its life and art (1902) (14784705063).jpg

Identifier: pompeiiitslifear00maua (find matches)
Title: Pompeii, its life and art
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Mau, August, 1840-1909 Kelsey, Francis W. (Francis Willey), 1858-1927
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
and the later decoration is somarked that it seems impossible to explain except on the assump-tion of a change of owners. We may well believe that aboutthe middle of the first century this was the home of a family ofculture and standing, who secured for the decoration of it thebest artist that could be obtained, bringing him perhaps fromRome or from a Greek city. But within a score of years after-wards the house passed into the hands of the Vettii, freedmen,perhaps, whose taste in matters of art was far inferior to that ofthe former occupants, and a number of rooms were redecorated. The excellent preservation of a large part of both the earlierand the later decoration gives the house the appearance of anart gallery. To describe fully and interpret all the paintingswould require a small volume. The limitations of space makeit possible to present here only the more important; we com- mXM . :^i^\.ifli?^;^^^ ^ .\ •-^./\ 3^, ^ .. ^ ■ -■-■.■1 Apollo after the slaying of the Dragon
Text Appearing After Image:
Agamemnon in the Shrine of ArtemisPLATE VIII.—TWO WALL PAINTINGS IN THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII I THE HOUSE OF THE VETTH 329 ^iKmMM.i^**a«.fc El H Fig. 163.—Scheme of wall divisionin the large room opening onthe peristyle. mence with those in the large room at the right of the peristyle,which are the most interesting of the entire series. This apartment (q) may have been used either as a diningroom or as a sitting room. The scheme of decoration is indi-cated in Fig. 163, which presents thedivision of the end wall; the sidewalls had five large panels instead ofthree. The ground of the base is black.The stripe separating the base fromthe main part of the wall is red, ex-cept the small sections (4, 4), whichhave a black ground; the verticalstripes between the panels are black,and the same color forms the back-ground of the border above. Theground of the panels is cinnabar red. The painting in the central panel (i) has not been preserved ; inthose at the sides (2) are floating figures. T

Note About Images