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8/11/2019 Notes on the Mural Paintings From Boscoreale
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Notes on the Mural Paintings from Boscoreale
Author(s): Margarete Bieber and Dietrich von BothmerSource: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr., 1956), pp. 171-172Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/500696
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8/11/2019 Notes on the Mural Paintings From Boscoreale
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rchaeological
o t e s
PLATES 66-67
NOTES ON THE
MURAL
PAINTINGS
FROM BOSCOREALE
The
large figures
in
the
main
room
of
the
villa
built near
Boscoreale in
the first
century
B.c.
have been
interpreted
in the
most diverse
ways.
Studniczka'
saw
members
of
the
Macedonian
royal family. Phyllis
Williams
Lehmann
refuted
this
theory
and
replaced
it with
embodiments
of
Aphrodite,
Adonis
and their
attendants.2
In
reviewing
this
important
book3 I
re-
fused
to see a
cycle
of sacred
representations
related
to the cult of
Aphrodite
and Adonis and
suggested
that the nine
large
figures
on
the two
side walls
of
the
room are
three
generations
of one
family,
probably
of
the owner
of
the
villa,
assembled
to venerate
the
gods represented originally
on the now lost rear
wall.
Erik
Sj6qvist
rejects
this
attempt
in
a
footnote.4
He
agrees
with
the
theory
of
Phyllis
Lehmann,
but
he
improves
it
in
one
important
point.
The
figure
inter-
preted
as
Antigonus
by
Studniczka,
as an
attendant
female
associated
with
Aphrodite
by
Phyllis
Leh-
mann,
Sj6qvist
proves
definitely
to be
male
by
enumer-
ating
a
number
of
male
statuettes
from
Cyprus
wear-
ing
the same
headgear.
This correct observation I wish again to modify. It
is not
an
effeminate
young temple
attendant, 5
but
a mature warrior
who
holds
a
spear,
wears
a sleeved
robe,
a
mantle,
and
a
cap
of
the
tam'o'shanter
type.
The features of the face
are serious and
developed,
with
deeply
sunk
eyes,
a
long
nose,
lean
cheeks,
nar-
row
lips
with
drooping
corners and
a
short
chin.
They
look to
me
highly
individualized,
as do
all the heads
in
the
Metropolitan
Museum
(pl.
66,
figs.
I,
2)
and
the
old
man
in
Naples.
The
individuality
of the
latter
has
never been
doubted,
and
he
has
been
given
the
names
of the
philosophers
Epicurus
and
Menedemos,
or of
Cinyras,
the
king
of
Cyprus.
The shield must
be-
long
to
the
man,
not to the
woman,
who
is his
mother
or his wife. His
counterpart
in the
Metropolitan
Muse-
um has
neither
dress,
nor
headgear,
nor
shield. His
shield
is
probably
the one
which
the
girl
belonging
to
the
right
side
(not
as now exhibited
in the
museum
to
the
left)
of
this central
panel,
is
carrying away.
She
moves toward
a small
door
and
looks
back
and
upward
with
a
pathetic expression.
I believe
that this is
the
shield which has
been
brought
back
from
the
battle-
field,
where
the
heroic
man found
his
death.
The
wom-
an next to him is
seated,
not on the same
bench,
as
Phyllis
Lehmann
believed,
but on
a
separate
lower
chair.
The
end of the
side rail
of
the
throne
of the
man
is seen
next
to
his
spear
below
her
left hand
(fig.
i,
below at the
right).
She must
be
his
wife,
for
she
displays
her
wedding
ring
on
the left
hand,
while she
sustains
her
head
with
her
right
hand.
Her
large eyes
look
mournfully
into
the
distance.
I
thus
believe that
the
two men
are the
two sons
of
the
old man
in
Naples.
Both sons
had
gone
to
war,
but
only
one re-
turned. The
war
took
place
in
a
country
with
a
cold
climate,
where
the soldiers
had
to wear
sleeved
tunics
and
protect
their
heads.
That
is
why
the
soldier
in
Naples
wears a
cap
with
long
lappets,
which can serve
as
earmuffs.
The
cithara
player
may
be a
sister with
her little
girl.
Both
she
and the
little
girl
have similar
individual
features
(fig.
2).
The
next
parallels
to
the
girls
are
on
vases
of
Centuripe,
already compared
with
the
shieldbearer
by
Gisela
Richter.6
Other
painted
portraits
of
the
second
style
which
could
be
compared
are
the
couple
in
Naples
from
Pompeii,7
the man
recalling
the
warrior,
the
woman
the
shieldbearer
while
the
poetess8
recalls
the
cithara
player.
These
certainly
are
individual
likenesses.
The
art
of
portraiture
flourished
in
Italy
in
the
first
century
B.c.
Three
special
painters
of
likenesses
are named for this period by Pliny (Nat. Hist. 35,
I47f):
Jaia,
Sopolis
and
Dionysius.
The
interest in
genealogy
also
was
at
its
height
in
this
period.'
The
pictures
of
ancestors
were
minted
on
coins,
and
Aemi-
lius
Paulus
dedicated
the
portraits
of
his
ancestors in
the
Basilica
Aemilia
(Pliny,
35,
13).
Timomachos,
who
lived in
the
time
of
Caesar,
painted
a
noble
fam-
ily
in
Greek
dress
(pallium),
partly
seated,
partly
standing
(Pliny,
35, 136:
Cognatio
nobilium,
palliati
quos
dicturos
pinxit,
alterum
stantem,
alterum
seden-
tem ),
which reads
like
a
description
of
the
family
in
Boscoreale.
All
these
portraits
seem
to
me
to
rep-
resent
contemporary
Italian
personalities.
The
headgear,
of
which
Sj6qvist
has
given
a
num-
ber
of
examples,
occurs,
beside
the
Cypriot
votaries,
in
some
terracotta
statuettes and in
the
man
of the stucco
relief
in
Munich,
standing
before
a
rustic
shrine
(pl.
67,
fig.
5)
.1
He
certainly
is
not a
boy '1
but
a
man,
and,
as I
believe,
a
soldier,
for
he
carries
a
lance
and
is
also
dressed
in
the
sleeved
tunic.
Other
examples
1
Jdl
38/39
(1923/24)
57-128.
2
Roman Wall
Paintings
from
Boscoreale
in
the
Metropolitan
Museum
of
Art
(1953)
3Iff.
3AJA
57
(I953)
237f.
4AJA59 (I955) 46f., note 8.
5
Sj6qvist, op.cit. 47.
6
Metropolitan
Museum Studies
2
(1929-1930)
187ff.,
pl.
fac-
ing p. 187,
figs.
2,
9,
16.
7
Curtius,
Die
Wandmalerei
Pompeiis,
376ff.,
pl. 41.
8ibidem,
pl.
II.
9
Vessberg,
Studien
zur
Kunstgeschichte
der
rdmischen Re-
publik, io9ff.
10
From
Lehmann,
op.cit.
61,
fig. 42.
11
Sj6qvist, op.cit. 47,
no.
23.
8/11/2019 Notes on the Mural Paintings From Boscoreale
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172
VON
BOTHMER AND BIEBER
[AJA
60
for
the
headgear
come
from
New
Comedy,
where
there is no
doubt
that
warriors
are
meant.
In
the lost
wall
painting
with
a
braggart
warrior
and
his
parasite
(pl. 67,
fig.
6),12
the
captain
wears the sleeved
tunic
and
mantle,
and
the
flat
cap
with a
narrow
brim,
and
he
holds
the
spear just
as
the
warrior
on
the
Boscoreale
wall painting. A bronze statuette found in Sorrento
also
represents
a
warrior
holding
a
large
sword
and
wearing
such
a
beret
(pl. 67,
fig.
7).13
The statuette
in
the British Museum
(pl.
67, fig.
8)14
wears
the
tunic,
the
chlamys
of
the
warrior,
and
the
same
cap
with
circular
crown
and narrow
brim
on his
bearded
head.
Hephaistos
in
his
fight
with Ares before Hera
wears,
besides
shield and
spear,
a similar
cap,
deco-
rated
with
a
tassel.15
Finally,
such
caps
are
worn
by
the
members of
a
chorus of
soldiers on
a relief found in
the
Agora
of
Athens,
which
will
be
published
by
Evelyn
Harrison
in
the
catalogue
of
sculptures
found
in
the
Agora.
I thus believe
that
the
figure
with
the
tam'o'shan-
ter is
a warrior
and
a
member of
an
outstanding
family,
which
was
painted,
venerating
the
gods
on
the
rear
wall,
by
some
outstanding
painter
of the
first
century
B.C.
Whether
it is
the
family
of Lucius
Heren-
nius Florus
or of
Publius
Fannius
Synistor,
who
owned
the
house
one
after the
other,
we
cannot
decide. The
master
who ordered
the
wall
paintings
must in
any
case
have been
a
cultured and
art
loving personality,
proud
of
his
family,
of
his
soldier
sons
and
his
beauti-
ful
daughters
and
daughters-in-law.
MARGARETE
IEBER
NEW
YORK
III
Except
for
certain murals which
the Canessa
broth-
ers
gave
to
the
Italian
government,
the
wall
paintings
and
mosaics
from Boscoreale were sold at auction
in
Paris
at
Durand-Ruel's
on
June
8th,
1903.
The cata-
logue
by
Arthur
Sambon 1
lists
forty-eight
lots.
Of
these
the
Metropolitan
Museum
of
Art obtained
nos.
7-8,
12,
I6,
19-22,
24-25, 33-35, 39-46;
the Louvre
got
nos.
1-3,
IO;
Raoul
Warocqu6 bought
nos.
13, 15, 27-
31,
36-37
for
his
collection
at
Mariemont;
no.
26 went
to
Brussels,
and
nos.
i
i and
14
have
found
their
way
to
Amsterdam.
Mrs.
Lehmann
gives
the
present
loca-
tion of these
lots17
but leaves nos. 4-6, 9, 17-18, 23,
32, 38,
47-48
unaccounted for.
Three
of
them,
however,
are
in
public
museums: nos.
17-18
entered
the
Mus&e
de Picardie at
Amiens in
1927
with
the
Maignan
collec-
tion
and are
illustrated
here
for
the
first
time
(pl.
66,
figs.
3-4);
the
third,
no.
23,
is in the Muse
Bonnat at
Bayonne. 8
DIETRICH VON
BOTHMER
POSTSCRIPT
The
paper
by
Martin
Robertson,
The Boscoreale
Figure-Paintings (JRS 45
[19551 58-67,
pls.
11-13)
reached
us
when
this article
was
already
in
proof.
It
is therefore not
possible
to
discuss it
now as
fully
as
it deserves. It
is an
interesting
attempt
to
interpret
the
subject
of the
paintings
in the
big
hall as historic
and
symbolic
and
will
surely inspire
future
discussion.
M.B.
D.v.B.
12
Bieber,
History
of
the
Greek
and Roman
Theater,
175,
fig. 235 (from
Robert,
Masken
der
neueren
Komddie,
fig.
9).
13
Collection H.
Hoffmann,
Vente
Hdtel
Drouot,
15
mai
1899
ss. pl.
34,
no.
537,
whence
S.
Reinach,
Rip.
de
la Sta-
tuaire
3,
p.
58,
no. 2.
14
From a
photograph
of
the
British
Museum. C.
827;
also,
Pickard-Cambridge,The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 208, fig.
138.
15
Bieber,
op.cit.
272ff, fig. 370.
1
Les
Fresques
de
Boscoreale,
Paris
1903.
17
op.cit.
passim.
18
Inv.
804.
Illustrated
by
Sambon,
op.cit. p.
I6,
whence
Lehmann,
op.cit.
p.
28,
fig. 23.
NOTES ON
AN
INSCRIPTION FROM
HESPERIA
In
1935
a
fragment
of an
inscription
was
published
in
Hesperia
4,
p. 174,
no.
139. Thinking
that this
belonged
to
IG
II2,
1952,
I
wrote to
Mr.
Eugene
Van-
derpool
of
the
American
School
of
Classical
Studies
at
Athens,
who
very kindly
examined the stone and
found
that it
joined fragment
C.
The
stone
was
later
examined
by
Mr.
David
Lewis,
of
the
British
School
of
Archaeology,
to
whose kindness
I
am
also
indebted,
and
by
myself.
,ME
Nil.
N
NIO
'
%
-
&R:L*
nl~lo
. ,
The
measurements
f
the
combined
fragmentsare:
overall
height,
approximately
.3
m.,
overall
breadth
.285
m. or a
little
less,
thickness
.18
m.
or
more,
back
not
preserved, average height
of letters and
spaces
.oi
m.,
the
breadth
of the
letters
and
spaces
varies between
.009
m.
and
.0069
m. The
breadth
of
the column
of
names was
at
least
.2
m., possibly
.201 m.
if
the
mark
opposite
line
49
is
part
of
a
sub-heading
in
the
next
8/11/2019 Notes on the Mural Paintings From Boscoreale
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BIEBER AND
VON BOTHMER
PLATE
66
FIG. I.
Woman
FIG.
2. Cithara
player
and
Girl
Frescoes from
Boscoreale,
The
Metropolitan
Museum of
New
York.
Courtesy
The
Metropolitan
Museum
of New
York
FIGS.
3
and
4:
Frescoes from
Boscoreale,
Collection
Maignan,
Mus&e
de
Picardie,
Amiens.
Courtesy
Mus&e
de
Picardie,
Amiens
8/11/2019 Notes on the Mural Paintings From Boscoreale
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PLATE
67
BIEBER
AND
VON
BOTHMER
FIG.
5.
Stucco
relief
in
Munich
FIG.
7.
Bronze
Statuette
of
a
warrior
from
Sorrento
FIG.
6.
Braggart
Warrior.
Lost
Wall
Painting
from
Pompeii
FIG. 8. Terracotta
Statuette
of
a
warrior.
Courtesy
of the Trustees
of
the
British
Museum