Standing woman holding a shield: from the grand triclinium. She is probably a seer predicting the birth of a male heir and future king. The image of a nude man wearing the white band that served as crown for Hellenistic rulers appears as a reflection in her shield.
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Artwork Details
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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: 70 x 40 1/4in. (177.8 x 102.2cm)
Classification:Miscellaneous-Paintings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1903
Object Number:03.14.7
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Cook, Brian. 1964. "The Boscoreale Cubiculum: A New Installation." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 22(5): pp. 166, 182–83, fig. 27.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. p. 1245, n.11, New York: Dutton.
Hoving, Thomas. 1970. "Director's Choice." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 28(5): p. 205.
Joly, Elda. 1980. "Teorie vecchie e nuove sulla ceramica policroma." Philias Charin. Miscellanea di Studi Classici in onore di Eugenio Manni. Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore.
Anderson, Maxwell. 1987. "Pompeian Frescos in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 45(3): p. 30, fig. 36.
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. C, 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. Cambridge.
Pfrommer, Michael. 1999. Alexandria, im Schatten der Pyramiden. p. 91, fig. 125, Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.
De Grummond, Nancy Thomson. 2002. "Mirrors, Marriage, and Mysteries." Journal of Roman Archaeology. Supplementary Series., 47: pp. 84–85, fig. 32.
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. 10.16, 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. 380, pp. 329, 481, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pappalardo, Umberto. 2008. The Splendor of Roman Wall Painting. p. 43, 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.
Barbet, Alix and Annie Verbanck-Piérard. 2013. La Villa Romaine de Boscoreale et Ses Fresques, Vol. I and II. pl. X, 3, Arles: Errance.
Galitz, Kathryn. 2016. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. no. 27, p. 33, New York: Skira.
Campbell, Virginia L. 2017. Ancient Rome. pp. 78–79, New York: Thames and Hudson.
Plantzos, Dimitris. 2018. The Art of Painting in Ancient Greece. pp. 300–1, fig. 293, 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. p. 197, figs. 9, 11, 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. 29, pp. 23, 90–95, 103, 201, fig. 60, New York: Scala Publishers.
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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.
