Wall painting from the west wall of Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale

Wall painting from the west wall of Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This large painting fragment comes from the west wall of the exedra (Room L), opening off the rear of the villa's peristyle. A sacrificial bull's head (boukranion) originally occupied the center of the wall, from which an opulent garland of fruits and leaves is suspended to left and right against a brilliant wall of simulated masonry. Preserved are parts of four of the original five red slabs of the central zone, separated by golden bands and crowned by a white molding. There follows a course of alternating green and golden blocks that bears an elaborate entablature consisting of a white architrave, a purple frieze decorated with brackets in the form of bearded horned snakes with interlacing tails, and a white cornice. Hanging from a red cord tied in the bull's mouth is a wicker basket, the cista mystica, its lid removed to reveal a snake uncoiling from a bed of ivy. Suspended from the garland also in red cords are a cymbal and a satyr mask. The Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale: A Virtual Tour

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wall painting from the west wall of Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at BoscorealeWall painting from the west wall of Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at BoscorealeWall painting from the west wall of Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at BoscorealeWall painting from the west wall of Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at BoscorealeWall painting from the west wall of Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.