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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
In 1956 the British Museum acquired on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum a series of eighteen stucco reliefs of the kind used by the Romans in the interior decoration of walls and vaults: these were bought in 1078, together with a terracotta relief, and were all ascribed to a ‘Greek tomb of the second century B.C. lately discovered in South Italy.’ They appear as follows in the British Museum Register of Antiquities:
1. In relief foreparts of Griffin facing right, ending in short twisted tail. Background painted red. 35 × 39·5 cm.
2. In relief foreparts of panther facing left, ending in short twisted tail. Background painted red. 35 × 38·8 cm.
3. In relief ‘putto’ moving left holding a patera (?) in his right hand and tambourine in left hand. Overhead hanging swags. 47·7 × 35 cm.
4. ‘Putto’ flying to right holding a lyre in right hand. Overhead hanging swags. 49·6 × 35·6 cm.
5. In relief a winged Victory moving lightly to right. 48·3 × 34·4 cm.
6. In relief ‘putto’ running to right, over his left arm a small piece of drapery. Overhead hanging swags. 48·3 × 39·5 cm.
7. Concave and framed with leaf-tongue moulding. In relief ‘putto’ riding a sea-horse. 30·5 × 39·5 cm.
8. Concave and framed by leaf-tongue moulding. In relief ‘putto’ riding sea-monster. 31·2 × 43·9 cm.
9. In relief half-reclining semi-nude female figure, probably Venus. 30·5 × 37·6 cm.
10. Concave, framed by leaf-moulding. In relief ‘putto’ on back of panther prancing to left. 31·8 × 34·4 cm.
11. In relief, griffin prancing to left. 28 × 33·1 cm.
1 Strong, D. E., BMQ xxi (1957–1959), pp. 98–100Google Scholar, pl. XXXIV; see also Bankart, G. P., The Art of the Plasterer (London, 1909Google Scholar), figs. 9–13, 18, 26. Bankart's text (pp. 15–6) is unhelpful. The loan to the British Museum is in effect permanent.
2 This list is reproduced by kind permission of Dr. Strong. The full registration numbers are 1956 12–4 1–18. I have omitted the Victoria and Albert numbers, which are also given in the Register, and have converted all measurements from inches into centimetres. The first figure in each case is the height, the second the width, Points of interpretation on which I disagree will appear in the text.
3 Pp. 178–82, 185–6. See also Dubois, C., Pouzzoles Antique (Paris, 1907), pp. 353–4Google Scholar. The tombs were never properly published.
4 Minervini, op. cit., p. 178, ‘qualche anno fa.’ Ruggiero, M., Scavi di Antichità nelle Province di Terraferma (Naples, 1888), p. 233Google Scholar, refers to excavations by D. Salvatore di Fraia which had revealed two ancient tombs in 1855.
5 Rend. Accad. Arch. Napoli (1952), pp. 92–3.
6 Op. cit., pls. VIII, IX, X. Reproduced here in pls. VII, a; VIII, a; IX, a.
7 E.g., the tombs of San Vito (Dubois, op. cit., pp. 351–2, fig. 50); Via Vigna (Maiuri, Not. Scav. (1927), pp. 325 ff); Fondo Caiazzo (Spinazzola, , Le Arti Decorative in Pompei (Milan, 1928), pls. 167, 168Google Scholar).
8 See note 12.
9 See Appendix, p. 32.
10 Bankart, op. cit., figs. 22, 23.
11 Ibid., fig. 12.
12 Minervini's language in describing the positions occupied by the various reliefs is not always clear (see Appendix, p. 32).
13 The fact that this figure is one of a pair rules out the suggestion that it represents Venus (see catalogue above).
14 The entrance of this tomb was from the east. To the left of the aedicula, which faced the entrance, was a stairway. For a discussion of the decoration see Appendix, p. 32.
15 This tomb is also entered from the east.
16 A comparatively rare motif in Roman art and one that, as far as I know, is not found elsewhere in a funerary context. Heracles however is a favourite figure in tomb-decoration because of his triumphs over death and his subsequent apotheosis (see e.g., Bayet, J. in Mélanges d'Arch., xxxix (1921), pp. 219 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; xl (1923), pp. 19 ff.). Minervini calls attention to a Capuan coin which has a beardless Heracles on the obverse and Telephus and the hind on the reverse (Avellino in Bull. Arch. Nap., vol. i (1843), p. 11Google Scholar).
17 Bankart, op. cit., figs. 11, 25, 26.
18 It is less likely to represent Heracles and Hesione, as the male figure has no club. On the other hand, if Perseus it is, he has no distinguishing attributes—neither sickle, nor sword, nor head of Medusa.
19 Strong, op. cit., p. 100.
20 The posture of our female figure closely recalls that of a figure on a stucco relief which forms a small panel in the Great Frieze of the House of Meleager at Pompeii (now in Naples Museum) and which may well represent Perseus and Andromeda, or Heracles and Hesione (Naples inv. 9595; Real Museo Borbonico, x, pl. XLIII, p. 3). There is no trace of a monster now, but it may have broken away since ancient times. See also Espérandieu, Recueil Général des Bas-Reliefs, Statues et Bustes de la Gaule Romaine, iv, no. 2997; Reinach, , RR ii, p. 116, 1Google Scholar.
21 Woodward, J. M., Perseus (Cambridge, 1937), pp. 3–23Google Scholar; PW XIX i, cols. 978–80, 985; but see Ovid, , Met. v, 22–3Google Scholar.
22 Suggestion of Minervini, op. cit., p. 186.
23 Woodward, op. cit., pp. 84, 86.
24 Strong, op. cit., p. 99.
25 Op. cit., p. 443, no. 170.
26 Information from W. Johannowsky.
27 See above, note 5.
28 The earliest example I know is the stuccoed tomb in the Via Laurentina necropolis at Ostia (Not. Scav. (1938), pp. 56 ff.; Squarciapino, in Scavi di Ostia iii, pp. 85–91Google Scholar). An earlier stuccoed tomb near Osimo (G. V. Gentili, Auximum (1955), pp. 129–31, fig. 9) seems to have only shields, plant-motifs, etc., in its vault-decoration.
29 See Maiuri, op. cit., p. 329, for the hypogeum of Via Vigna. The unpublished stuccoed tombs of Fondo Caiazzo and San Vito can be dated on the basis of their architecture to the first century A.D.
30 Maiuri, I Campi Flegrei, 3rd ed. (1958), pp. 53–61.
31 Frank, Tenney, An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome V, p. 132Google Scholar; Frederiksen, M. W. in PW, XXIII iiGoogle Scholar, cols. 2044–5, 2050. For another view on the reasons for the decline of Puteoli see Rostovtzeff, M., Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1926), pp. 150–1Google Scholar.
32 G. Calza, La Necropoli del Porto di Roma nell' Isola Sacra (1940), p. 108.
33 Cf. MAAR iv (1924), pls. I–IX, XVIIGoogle Scholar; Calza, op. cit., fig. 56. Further examples at Baia.
34 Perhaps the rest of their tails was originally painted or rendered in a thin plaster wash.
35 Kenner-Praschniker, , Der Bäderbezirk von Virunum (Vienna, 1947), p. 208Google Scholar, fig. 208. The scale of this figure however is much smaller than that of our figure: the fragment measures only 10cm. × 10·5 cm.
36 At Pozzuoli for instance they are found riding dolphins and hunting wild animals (Fondo Gaiazzo and Via Vigna), trying to trap a dragon-fly (Fondo Caiazzo), and firing arrows (two-storeyed tomb near San Vito: Dubois, op. cit., p. 352; P. A. Paoli, Avanzi delle Antichità esistenti a Pozzuoli, Miseno, Baia, pl. XXXVI). For cupids on sarcophagi, see Cumont, Symbolisme, pp. 341–9.
37 Real Museo Borbonico xv, pls. XXV and XXVI, p. 5, note 1; cf. Naples inv. 9626 (Dubois, op. cit., p. 442, no. 162). For the sea-thiasos and the participation in it of amorini, see Petersen, in Ann. Inst., 32 (1860), pp. 396–409Google Scholar; cf. Rumpf, A., Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs v, 1 (Berlin, 1939), p. 131Google Scholar; Andreae, B., Studien zur Römischen Grabkunst (Heidelberg, 1963), pp. 133–9Google Scholar. For further examples from the marine repertoire at Pozzuoli, see note 47 below.
38 I know of only one other example at all similar—a stucco fragment in Naples Museum (inv. 9575).
39 E.g., Naples inv. 9567, 9572, 9574, 9575, all of unknown provenance.
40 From a villa rustica at Petraro: see d'Orsi, L., Come Ritrovai l'Antica Stabia, 2nd ed. (Milan, 1962), pls. 37, 38Google Scholar. Compare the relief (from another Stabian villa) depicting a cupid and a dog, op. cit., pl. 39.
41 Bankart, op. cit., fig. 18. The bird has an animal's legs and paws, as elsewhere in Roman art. I do not think that it can be called a stork, as in the catalogue quoted above.
42 Ibid., figs. 9, 10.
43 Ibid., fig. 13.
44 Dubois, op. cit., p. 442, no. 154.
45 The lower legs and feet have been restored, probably incorrectly.
46 Finger-prints are also preserved on the winged Victories modelled in stucco on three panels cut from a Roman columbarium and acquired by the British Museum in 1922 (Strong, E., Art in Ancient Rome (London, 1929), ii, fig. 260Google Scholar).
47 See Dubois, op. cit., pp. 349–54, fig. 50. The sea thiasos is represented in the tombs of Via Vigna and Fondo Caiazzo (references in note 7 above). The domed vault of a half-destroyed tomb on the Via Campana about 3 miles from Pozzuoli shows the tail of a sea-monster, while a stucco relief in Naples with a Nereid riding a sea-monster is also from Pozzuoli (inv. 9627; Dubois, p. 443, no. 163). Other references are given in note 37.
48 Dubois, pp. 442–3.
