From the villa of Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase, the Mythological Room (19)
Landscape with Polyphemus and Galatea

This fresco once decorated the west wall of bedroom 19, the Mythological Room, in the Imperial Villa at Boscotrecase. Third-Style Roman bedrooms were often adorned with mythological scenes that apparently imitated the framed paintings that hung in Roman houses. This example shows the Cyclops Polyphemus as the unsuccessful suitor of the lovely sea nymph Galatea, who rides a dolphin at the lower left. Polyphemus is seated in the center of a rocky outcrop, professing his desire for Galatea with a melody on his panpipe, but to no avail. As told by Ovid, Galatea hid with her lover Acis, the son of Pan, while she listened to the Cyclop's song, but he discovered them and rose in rage, crushing Acis under a boulder as he tried to escape.

This wall painting comes from a bedroom in the imperial villa uncovered between 1902 and 1905 near the modern town of Boscotrecase, not far from Pompeii. The walls were predominately red and a large mythological painting filled the center on each side of the room.

The painting seen here combines two separate incidents in the life of the monstrous, one-eyed giant, Polyphemus. In the foreground he sits on a rocky projection guarding his goats and gazing at Galatea, the beautiful sea-nymph with whom he is hopelessly in love. Behind and above to the right, he is seen again, hurling a boulder at the departing ship of Odysseus, who has escaped with his men from the giant's cave after blinding him.

The landscape painting in the same room includes two consecutive incidents in the story of Perseus and Andromeda. At the front Perseus flies in to rescue the princess who is chained to a rock at the mercy of a seamonster; above to the right the happy couple are welcomed by her grateful parents.

The fortunes of love and the ever-present sea are the themes linking these two works. The combination of disparate episodes in one panel was a bold innovation when these were painted. The translucent blue-green background tone unifies these magical landscapes and must have brought a sense of coolness to the room.