DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61387#0142
82
THE RUINS OF POMPEII.
comparison of jollity, good eating, and particularly good drinking. Behind
him a little cupid is carrying off his cup. On the altar, which is bedecked
with garlands, three cupids, assisted by a fourth, who has climbed the tree,
are elevating on their shoulders the hero’s quiver; while four others on the
ground, to the left of the altar, are trying to raise his ponderous club. This
part of the picture has often been expressed on gems. At the base of the
altar is a votive tablet, with the image of Bacchus, declaring the deity to
whom it was sacred.
On the left of the picture, in an elevated position, is a beautiful group
of three females, scantily clothed, and having on their wrists refulgent
bracelets. She, in the middle, who sits on a rock, with a fan in her hand,
a customary attribute of Venus, is probably Omphale, with her Lydian hand-
maids, who seem to look with complacency on the hero’s condition, as tend-
ing to rivet his servitude. A little grove, and a column with a vase upon
it, terminate the view on this side.
On a mountain top, probably that of Tmolus, on the right of the picture,
Bacchus, accompanied by Fauns and Bacchantes, is gazing intently on the son
of Alcmena. His attitude is one of tranquil repose and satisfaction, as he
appears to converse with his followers. A Bacchante leans over the god;
the raised arm of a Faun on the left expresses his joy and admiration at
the scene; another, on the right, manifests the same feelings by removing
his pan-pipe from his lips, and breaking off the tune that he was playing.
This picture, for the grace and harmony of its composition, as well as
its freshness of colouring and delicacy of handling, is one of the most import-
ant monuments of the pictorial art discovered at Pompeii. Two of the
groups, that of Hercules, and that of Omphale, are found repeated in sepa-
rate pictures; but this is the only instance yet discovered in which the three
groups are combined together, and form one picture: nor is that of Bacchus
and his companions to be found elsewhere. The whole is thought to refer
to a satyric drama on the subject of the Lydian Hercules.
The spacious and lofty exedra in which these paintings are has a thresh-
old of white mosaic, bordered with black ■ zones, with ornaments in the
middle like shields, in the shape of a half moon. The floor is painted with
black fillets, except a piece of mosaic in the centre, in which are represented
two diotce, or double-handled wine jars, with shoots of vine which interlace
and surround a rectangular piece of marble, formed of twenty-two squares
of giallo antico. The walls, which are painted in yellow compartments on a
THE RUINS OF POMPEII.
comparison of jollity, good eating, and particularly good drinking. Behind
him a little cupid is carrying off his cup. On the altar, which is bedecked
with garlands, three cupids, assisted by a fourth, who has climbed the tree,
are elevating on their shoulders the hero’s quiver; while four others on the
ground, to the left of the altar, are trying to raise his ponderous club. This
part of the picture has often been expressed on gems. At the base of the
altar is a votive tablet, with the image of Bacchus, declaring the deity to
whom it was sacred.
On the left of the picture, in an elevated position, is a beautiful group
of three females, scantily clothed, and having on their wrists refulgent
bracelets. She, in the middle, who sits on a rock, with a fan in her hand,
a customary attribute of Venus, is probably Omphale, with her Lydian hand-
maids, who seem to look with complacency on the hero’s condition, as tend-
ing to rivet his servitude. A little grove, and a column with a vase upon
it, terminate the view on this side.
On a mountain top, probably that of Tmolus, on the right of the picture,
Bacchus, accompanied by Fauns and Bacchantes, is gazing intently on the son
of Alcmena. His attitude is one of tranquil repose and satisfaction, as he
appears to converse with his followers. A Bacchante leans over the god;
the raised arm of a Faun on the left expresses his joy and admiration at
the scene; another, on the right, manifests the same feelings by removing
his pan-pipe from his lips, and breaking off the tune that he was playing.
This picture, for the grace and harmony of its composition, as well as
its freshness of colouring and delicacy of handling, is one of the most import-
ant monuments of the pictorial art discovered at Pompeii. Two of the
groups, that of Hercules, and that of Omphale, are found repeated in sepa-
rate pictures; but this is the only instance yet discovered in which the three
groups are combined together, and form one picture: nor is that of Bacchus
and his companions to be found elsewhere. The whole is thought to refer
to a satyric drama on the subject of the Lydian Hercules.
The spacious and lofty exedra in which these paintings are has a thresh-
old of white mosaic, bordered with black ■ zones, with ornaments in the
middle like shields, in the shape of a half moon. The floor is painted with
black fillets, except a piece of mosaic in the centre, in which are represented
two diotce, or double-handled wine jars, with shoots of vine which interlace
and surround a rectangular piece of marble, formed of twenty-two squares
of giallo antico. The walls, which are painted in yellow compartments on a