On black ground, in center, a religious ceremony taking place before a tower. In foreground, a pair of slim columns supporting ornate pediment. Above each column, portrait enclosed in medallion. Left portrait is probably Julia, daughter of Augustus; right Livia, wife of Augustus.
#1275. Overview: The Black Room-Late First Century B.C., Part 1
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1275. Overview: The Black Room-Late First Century B.C., Part 1
1276. Overview: The Black Room-Late First Century B.C., Part 2
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Artwork Details
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Title:Wall painting on black ground: Aedicula with small landscape, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase
Period:Early Imperial, Augustan
Date:last decade of the 1st century BCE
Culture:Roman, Pompeian
Medium:Fresco
Dimensions:Overall: 91 3/4 x 45in. (233.1 x 114.3cm)
Classification:Miscellaneous-Paintings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1920
Accession Number:20.192.1
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Richter, Gisela M. A. and Christine Alexander. 1939. Augustan Art: An Exhibition Commemorating the Bimillennium of the Birth of Augustus. p. 27, fig. 63, New York: Marchbanks Press.
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. pp. 99–100, fig. 53, Cambridge, Mass.: Archaeological Institute of America.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1955. Ancient Italy : a study of the interrelations of its peoples as shown in their arts. p. 81, fig. 253, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 75, pp. 102–3, 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. 42, 54, figs. 48, 56–57.
Knauer, Elfriede R. 1990. "Wind Towers in Roman Wall Paintings?." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 25: pp. 5–6, fig. 1.
Walter-Karydi, Elena. 1990. "Die Entstehung der Grotteskenornamentik in der Antike." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 97: pp. 151 n. 44, 152, pl. 42, 2.
Bergmann, Bettina. 1992. "Exploring the Grove: Pastoral Space on Roman Walls." The Pastoral Landscape, Studies in the History of Art, 36. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Knauer, Elfriede R. 1993. "Roman Wall Paintings from Boscotrease: Three Studies in the Relationship between Writing and Painting." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 28: pp. 13–15, figs. 1, 3, 11.
Carratelli, Giovanni Pugliese and Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli. 1994. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale: Atlante delle Forme Ceramiche, Suppl. 2, Vol. 1. plate, p. 726, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Bartman, Elizabeth and Cambridge University Press. 1999. Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome. p. 12, Cambridge.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 2000. The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West, Elizabeth J. Milleker, ed. no. 27, pp. 46–47, 205, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 399, pp. 342–43, 484, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Kleiner, Fred S. 2007. A History of Roman Art. p. 76, fig. 5–25, Belmont, CA: Thomson and Wadsworth.
Squire, Michael. 2011. The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Ilicae. pp. 262–64, fig. 129, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anderson, Maxwell. 2012. The Quality Instinct: Seeing Art Through a Museum Director's Eye. p. 155, Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums.
Galitz, Kathryn. 2016. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. no. 30, pp. 36–37, New York: Skira.
Campbell, Virginia L. 2017. Ancient Rome. p. 81, New York: Thames and Hudson.
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. 204 n. 16, 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. 32, pp. 101–110, fig. 62, New York: Scala Publishers.
Squire, Michael. 2023. "Sizing up Art : The Intermedial Semantics of Scale in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds." Greek and Roman Small Size Sculpture, Giovanni Colzani, Dr. Clemente Marconi, and Fabrizio Slavazzi, eds. p. 43, fig. 4, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.
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