| Paintings and mosaics in Pompeii and Ercolano: |
Ducks and antelope
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 Very
little is known about the wall paintings in the Villa dei Papiri
at Herculaneum compared to the sculptures. The Naples Museum
houses a number of fragments of frescoes which have come away
from walls, with small pictures of landscapes, illustrations
with protomes of Medusa or Okeanos (?) or cupids which can
probably be ascribed to decorations of the fourth style.
This fragment is worthy of note, however, and can be seen
together with another two less interesting fragments. The pieces
come from the entrance hall - a reception room par excellence,
with decorations in the second style which were probably carried
out at the time of the construction of this luxurious residence.
No documentation or description by those who tunnelled their way
through the hard lava in the eighteenth century has survived
which might tell us more about the wall composition, but given
the characteristics of this panel, we can deduce that there was
an architectural scene showing pillars with a picture in the
middle, and with partition walls closing off the sides, in front
of which animals were in suspension.
And this is one of these partition walls; a flaming yellow
background verging on red, in front of which are hanging four
mallards, recognisable by their lively plumage while, lower
down, we find two antelopes lying with their hooves tied; as in
other paintings of this ilk, they are alive. The picture is from
the Hellenistic, or rather the Alexandrine, tradition and can be
seen by the presence of this type of duck which is common to the
River Nile. The whole scene, especially with regard to the
antelopes, is often repeated in later houses, such as that of
Dioskouroi at Pompeii. The subject-matter was quite at one with
the life-style of the inhabitants of a villa of otium whose
gardens saw the breeding of hares, wild animals and birds for
the pleasures of hunting.
Bibliography: De Petra 1883, p.282 n 97; A. Allroggen Bedel, Un
frammento dipinto, in La Villa dei Papiri (Cronache Ercolanesi
Suppl.) 13, 1983 pp. 65-68; S. De Caro, Il Museo Archeologico
Nazionale di Napoli, Napoli 1994 p. 300
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Fonte: MANN
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