| Paintings and mosaics in Pompeii and Ercolano: |
Portrait on glass
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 This
small portrait painted cold onto glass was a prized piece even
in ancient times, by virtue of its unusual support and the fact
that it was not produced in series. It is the reproduction of
the real features of a young man, who has a wide forehead, dark
intensely expressive eyes, and slightly thinning hair, which
make it rather similar to the Fayyum portraits. This work can be
traced back to the first half of the 1st century A.D. and was
found together with another similar piece in 1907, which is also
in possession of the Museum in Naples but which, unfortunately,
is almost totally devoid of colour.
Paintings on glass, whose delicate nature was due to the
adherent qualities of paint on glass, were protected by the
application of another layer of glass, and it was for this
reason that the two pieces are believed to have originally made
up a bi-frontal medallion; it is in any case unlikely that such
a small object could ever have been part of an architectural
artefact, as was the case of the medallions with Cupids on gold
leaf, from where we get the name of the Pompeian House VI 16, 7.
Careful attention to the colouring, such as the greyish hue of
the beard superimposed on pink, and the canny highlights filling
out the forehead with its dark eyebrows, all points to
production by the Alexandrine School with its close stylistic
parallels with 1st century A.D. portraits of women. It has been
suggested that this small medallion was produced in Campania by
Alexandrian craftsmen or at least somebody who was in close
contact with Egypt, and this hypothesis is encouraged by the
finding at Cuma and near Naples of two other paintings on glass.
Bibliography: L. Faedo, "Un ritratto su vetro da Pompei",
Prospettiva 7/1976, pp. 42-44; S. De Caro, Il Museo Archeologico
Nazionale di Napoli, Napoli 1994, p. 269
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Fonte: MANN
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