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.
Most recently it has been suggested that the pair may represent a Macedonian queen, or princess, and her daughter or younger sister. The gilded kithara and richly adorned, thronelike chair, as well as the carefully rendered gold jewelry and headbands, give the impression of royal personage. Whatever the exact subject, this painting and others in the villa were admired as excellent copies of Hellenistic art that emphasized the erudition and worldliness of the villa's owner.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:Wall painting from Room H of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale
Period:Late Republican
Date:ca. 50–40 BCE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Fresco
Dimensions:Overall: 73 1/2 x 73 1/2in. (186.7 x 186.7cm)
Classification:Miscellaneous-Stone
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1903
Accession Number:03.14.5
From the villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, main reception hall (room H)
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 181, fig. 111, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1926. Ancient Furniture: A History of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Furniture. p. 122, fig. 289, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 220–21, fig. 154, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 220–21, fig. 154, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. pp. 25, 75, fig. 27, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1936[1934]. A Guide to the Collections, Part 1: Ancient and Oriental Art, 2nd edn. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1939. Guide to the Collections: Ancient and Oriental Art--Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman Far Eastern, Near Eastern Oriental Armor, Vol. 1, World's Fair Edition. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. pp. 25, 75, fig. 27, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1944, 1949. Greek Painting: The Development of Pictoral Representation from Archaic to Graeco-Roman Times. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1949. "The Classical Contribution to Western Civilization." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 7(8): p. 210.
Lehmann, Phyllis Williams and Herbert Bloch. 1953. Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monographs on Archaeology and the Fine Arts, Vol. 5. no. 1, pp. 31, 50, 164, 166, 181–83, pls. 1-3, Cambridge, Mass.: Archaeological Institute of America.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1958. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 5. pp. 440–41, fig. 572, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Cook, Brian. 1964. "The Boscoreale Cubiculum: A New Installation." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 22(5): pp. 166, 182–83, fig. 27.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1966. The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans. p. 98, fig. 476, London: Phaidon Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. New York: Dutton.
Rousseau, Theodore. 1970. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 29(3): p. 134.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. "The Department of Greek and Roman Art: Triumphs and Tribulations." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 3: pp. 73–74, fig. 2.
Hoving, Thomas. 1970. "Director's Choice." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 28(5): pp. 204–5.
Joly, Elda. 1980. "Teorie vecchie e nuove sulla ceramica policroma." Philias Charin. Miscellanea di Studi Classici in onore di Eugenio Manni. p. 1245, n.11, Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore.
Liversidge, Joan. 1983. "Wall Painting and Stucco." A Handbook of Roman Art : A Survey of the Visual Arts of the Roman World, Martin Henig, ed. p. 99, pl. 3, Oxford: Phaidon Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 67, pp. 11, 92–3, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Anderson, Maxwell. 1987. "Pompeian Frescos in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 45(3): pp. 28–29, figs. 34–35.
Howard Kathleen. 1994. Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide: Works of Art Selected by Philippe De Montebello. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Müller, Frank G.J.M. 1994. The Wall paintings from the Oecus of the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor in Boscoreale. pp. 53–71, pl. A, Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben.
Fuchs, Michaela. 1998. "Aurea Aetas: Ein Glückverheissendes Sibyllinum im grossen Oecus der Villa von Boscoreale." Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 113: pp. 94–95, figs. 1–3.
Bartman, Elizabeth and Cambridge University Press. 1999. Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome. pp. 44, 60, 71 n. 96, Cambridge.
Pfrommer, Michael. 1999. Alexandria, im Schatten der Pyramiden. p. 90, fig. 123, Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.
Onians, John. 1999. Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome. p. 257, fig. 212, New Haven: Yale University Press.
De Grummond, Nancy Thomson. 2002. "Mirrors, Marriage, and Mysteries." Journal of Roman Archaeology. Supplementary Series., 47: pp. 82–83, fig. 31.
Torelli, Mario. 2003. "The Frescoes of the Great Hall of the Villa at Boscoreale. Iconography and Politics." Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome: Studies in Honour of T.P. Wiseman, David Braund and Christopher Gill, eds. p. 234, fig. 10.17, Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Strocka, Volker Michael. 2005. "“Troja – Karthago – Rom: Ein vorvergilisches Bildprogramm in Terzigno bei Pompeji”." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 112: p. 82.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 378, pp. 327, 481, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pappalardo, Umberto. 2008. The Splendor of Roman Wall Painting. p. 42, Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Bergmann, Bettina. 2010. "New Perspectives on the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 67(4): pp. 13, 24–25, fig. 41.
Harvey, Sarah M. 2010. "Iron Tools from a Roman Villa at Boscoreale, Italy, in the Field Museum and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology." American Journal of Archaeology, 114(4): pp. 697–714.
Grimaldi, Mario and Elisa Chiara Portale. 2011. "Alcuni esempi di reflessi della grande scultura ellenistica nella pittura romana-campana." Pittura ellenistica in Italia e in Sicilia, Linguaggi e Tradizioni: Atti del Convegno di Studi (Messina, 24-25 settembre 2009), Gioacchine Francesco La Torre and Mario Torelli, eds. pp. 550–51, figs. 167b, 169a, Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore.
Moreno, Paolo, Mario Grimaldi, and Elisa Chiara Portale. 2011. "Pittura in Grecia dalla maniera alla restaurazione romana (323-31 a.C.): rapporti con l'Occidente." Pittura ellenistica in Italia e in Sicilia, Linguaggi e Tradizioni: Atti del Convegno di Studi (Messina, 24-25 settembre 2009), Gioacchine Francesco La Torre and Mario Torelli, eds. pp. 12, 20, fig. 7b, Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2012. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. pp. 3, 78, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Barbet, Alix and Annie Verbanck-Piérard. 2013. La Villa Romaine de Boscoreale et Ses Fresques, Vol. I and II. pl. X, 1, Arles: Errance.
Lorenz, Katharina. 2015. "Wall Painting." A Companion to Roman Art, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World, Barbara E. Borg, ed. pp. 258–259, fig. 13.3, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Galitz, Kathryn. 2016. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. no. 25, pp. 32–33, New York: Skira.
Plantzos, Dimitris. 2018. The Art of Painting in Ancient Greece. pp. 282, 283, 296–98, figs. 282, 291, Atlanta: Lockwood Press.
Zanker, Paul. 2019. "The Frescoes from the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Art of the Hellenistic Kingdoms from Pergamon to Rome, Seán Hemingway and Kyriaki Karoglou, eds. pp. 196–98, figs. 9, 12, New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 27, pp. 23, 90–95, 103, figs. 58, 60, New York: Scala Publishers.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. pp. 025, 287, New York: Phaidon Press.
Mulliez, Maud. Le luxe de l'imitation : le trompe-l'œil de la fin de la République romaine, mémoires des artisans de la couleur, Collection du Centre Jean Bérard. Archéologie de l'artisanat antique ; 8. p. 40, fig. 14, Naples: Centre Jean Berard.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
![Roman Frescoes from Boscoreale: The Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor in Reality and Virtual Reality [adapted from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 67, no. 4 (Spring, 2010)]](/-/media/images/art/metpublication/cover/2010/roman_frescoes_from_boscoreale_the_villa_of_plubius_fannius_synistor_in_reality_and_virtual_reality.jpg)
