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Artwork Details
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Title:Wall painting: Polyphemus and Galatea in a landscape, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase
Period:Early Imperial, Augustan
Date:last decade of the 1st century BCE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Fresco
Dimensions:H. 73 3/4 in. (187.33 cm.) width 47 in. (119.38 cm.)
Classification:Miscellaneous-Paintings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1920
Object Number:20.192.17
From an imperial villa in Boscotrecase, near Pompeii (Santini 1905; Alexander 1929).
1903-4, excavated by Ernesto Santini from an imperial villa on his property at Boscotrecase; from 1904, collection of E. Santini; acquired February 3, 1921, purchased from the estate of E. Santini.
Santini, Ernesto. 1905. Fouilles Exécutées á Boscotrecase, Endroit Nommé "Rota. Boscotrecase, Italia: printed privately.
Della Corte, Matteo. 1922. "Pompei." Notizie Degli Scavi di Antichità, 19: pp. 459ff.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1926. "The Classical Collection: Rearrangement and Important Accessions." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21(4), part 2: p. 11.
Lehmann-Hartleben, Karl. 1926. "Archäologische Funde in den Jahren 1921-1924." Archäologischer Anzeiger, 41: cols. 140ff.
Alexander, Christine. 1928–1929. "Wall Paintings of the Third Style from Boscotrease." Metropolitan Museum Studies, 1(2): pp. 180, 182, 184–85, figs. 9–10.
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.
Rizzo, Guilio Emanuele. 1936. Monumenti della Pittura Antica Scoperta: Le Pitture della Casa di Livia, Vol. 3, Fasc. 3. no. 5, p. 27, Roma: La Libreria dello Stato.
Dawson, Christopher Mounsey. 1944. Romano-Campanian Mythological Landscape Painting. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
von Blanckenhagen, Peter Heinrich and Christine Alexander. 1962. "The Paintings from Boscotrecase." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung, Suppl. 6:
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. p. 106, pl. 77, 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): p. 51, fig. 54.
Knauer, Elfriede R. 1993. "Roman Wall Paintings from Boscotrease: Three Studies in the Relationship between Writing and Painting." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 28: pp. 28–29, fig. 37.
Howard Kathleen. 1994. Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide: Works of Art Selected by Philippe De Montebello p. 100, figs. 41–2, pl. 16, f, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Carratelli, Giovanni Pugliese and Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli. 1994. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale: Atlante delle Forme Ceramiche, Suppl. 2, Vol. 1. p. 727, fig. 803, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1997. Vol. 8: Thespiades-Zodiacus. "Polyphemos I," p. 1017, no. 55, pl. 673, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Picón, Carlos A. 1999. "Pleins feux sur l'art grec et romain." Connaissance des Arts, : no. 566.
Elsner, Jas. 1999. "“The Viewer in the Roman Landscape”." Apollo, 150: p. 15, fig. 3.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 2000. The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West no. 28, pp. 48–9, 205, New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richardson, Jr., Lawrence. 2000. A Catalog of Identifiable Figure Painters of Ancient Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. p. 3, 36–9, 46, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.
Bruno, Vincent. 2002. "Color in Hellenistic Painting." Color in Ancient Greece: The Role of Color in Ancient Greek Art and Architecture 700-31 B.C., Michalis A. Tiverios and Despoina S. Tsiafakis, eds. pp. 216–7, fig. 6, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 402, pp. 346–47, 485, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul. 2010. Roman Art. pp. 129, 131, fig, 79, Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Coleman, Kathleen M. 2015. "Approaching the Visual in Ancient Culture: Principles." Images for Classicists, Loeb Classical Monographs, vol. 15, Kathleen M. Coleman, ed. pp. 4–5, fig. 1.3, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Galitz, Kathryn. 2016. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. no. 29, p. 35, New York: Skira.
Plantzos, Dimitris. 2018. The Art of Painting in Ancient Greece. pp. 324–25, p. 314, 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. 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. 34, pp. 111, 113–16, fig. 65, New York: Scala Publishers.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. p. 072, New York: Phaidon Press.
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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.
