File:Wall painting from Room H of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, dated ca. AD 50–40, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (52872195368).jpg

<a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/247009" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/247009</a> Dimensions: Overall: 73 1/2 x 73 1/2in. (186.7 x 186.7cm)

This painting of a seated woman playing a kithara is from Room H, either a dining room (triclinium) or a room for social gatherings (oecus), in the villa at Boscoreale. Each of the paintings that originally adorned this room derives from the Greek tradition of megalographia, or large-scale painting, about which so much was written in antiquity; Apollinaris of Sidonius, Petronius in the Satyricon, and Vitruvius all shed light on the use of megalographia in Roman villas.

In this fresco, the kithara player is depicted as a plump young woman clothed in a purple chiton and white himation. She is adorned with a bracelet, earrings, and headband with a central medallion, all of gold. A small figure of Atlas supports the arm of her elaborately carved chair that originally was lacquered a deep lustrous red. The instrument she plays is not a simple lyre, but a gilded kithara, a large concert instrument played by Apollo and professional musicians. Behind the seated woman stands a small girl wearing a sleeveless purple chiton. She, too, is adorned with a gold headband, bracelet, and loop earrings. Like portrait figures, the woman and the girl gaze directly at the spectator.