Wall painting on red ground: candelabrum, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase

Roman, Pompeian

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 166

This panel depicts a slender candelabrum, decorated with winged sirens, and is typical of the so-called Third Pompeian style of Roman wall painting. It comes from one of four bedrooms excavated near the modern town of Boscotrecase between 1903 and 1905 at the site of a luxury villa overlooking the Bay of Naples. The villa was probably built by Marcus Agrippa, close friend and son-in-law of the emperor Augustus, but the frescoes date to the period immediately after Agrippa's death in 12 B.C. when the villa was extensively and lavishly refurbished. The frescoes have been preserved because the villa was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Wall painting on red ground: candelabrum, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase, Fresco, Roman, Pompeian

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Wall painting on red ground: candelabrum, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase, Fresco, Roman, Pompeian
Wall painting on red ground: candelabrum, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase, Fresco, Roman, Pompeian
Wall painting on red ground: candelabrum, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase, Fresco, Roman, Pompeian

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