Pompeiian Villa Fresco

Pompeiian Villa FrescoA print of a Pompeiian villa fresco in the Fourth Style the illusionistic decorative mode that dominated Roman wall painting from roughly 60 AD until Mount Vesuvius buried the Bay of Naples in 79. A villa interior wall is divided into coloured panels, painted architectural frames and central pinakes holding miniature mythological scenes. The four Pompeiian styles were classified by the German archaeologist August Mau in 1882 and remain the standard

almost casual — yet alert

best known from a Roman marble copy in the Vatican Museums and a rare intact bronze

even more romantic — a brooding fallen angel in the Byronic mould

carried on into every later representation of the hero

feel free to request it by email

the closing scene of the most famous love story in Greco-Roman fable

beauty and strength — and an appropriate emblem for the triclinium or bedchamber of a Roman villa

themselves

A print of Fontana's Ajax — an Italian reproductive engraving of the Greek hero after classical sculpture

the count biting his knuckles

The figure is a satyr — faun in Latin — caught in mid-dance

The building survives because Pope Boniface IV converted it to a church in 609 AD