Contents - Musée Maillol

Contents 

1. Press release 3 

2. Presentation of the exhibition by Stefano de Caro 4 

3. A tour of the exhibition through the objects presented 7 

4. «Love on the walls» by Antonio Varone 10 

5. Extracts from the catalogue 13 

« The matron in her house » by Marine Bretin-Chabrol 13 

« Water and its uses around the home » by Hélène Dessales 14 

« Gardens » by Annamaria Ciarallo 14 

« The discovery of Pompeii and its effects on European culture » by Cesare de 

Seta 

6. List of the objects on show 17 

7. Visual documents available for the media 27 

8. Useful information 33 

PRESS CONTACTS 

Agence Observatoire 

2 rue mouton duvernet - 75014 Paris 

Céline Echinard 

+33 (0)1 43 54 87 71 

celine@observatoire.fr 

www.observatoire.fr 

Musée Maillol 

Claude Unger 

+33 (0)6 14 71 27 02 

cunger@museemaillol.com 

Elisabeth Apprédérisse 

+33 (0)1 42 22 57 25 

eapprederisse@museemaillol.com 

15 

2

1. Press release 

THE MUSÉE MAILLOL 

presents the exhibition 

Pompeii - A Way of Life 

From 21 September 2011 to 12 February 2012 

The Musée Maillol conceived this exhibition – under the guidance of the Italian Ministry for 

Cultural Heritage and Activity and of the Special Superintendence for the Archeological 

Heritage of Naples and Pompeii, and the museum’s artistic director, Patrizia Nitti, in 

accordance with the President of the Dina Vierny, Olivier Lorquin – to show the modernity of 

Roman civilisation, the bedrock and inevitable precursor of our Western culture. 

A domus pompeiana – a Pompeiian house – will be brought to life through its most famous 

and traditional rooms: the atrium, triclinium and culina, the peristyle around the garden, the 

balneum and venereum. Each room will be decorated with frescoes and objects, including 

200 works from Pompeii and other sites around Vesuvius. 

While there are numerous and often well preserved public monuments from the Roman 

Empire – theatres, amphitheatres, spas, temples – apart from the ones found buried by the 

eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae, private houses 

are rare and have never been found complete anywhere else. These houses and villas still 

fascinate us because of their state of preservation. 

Their infrastructure – running water, heating systems, sewers, use of green spaces, right 

down to the design of their everyday objects – seems spectacularly modern. 

The exhibition will invite visitors to walk around in this house as if it were their own, creating 

the illusion that they are guests of the owners, despite the 2,000 years that separate us from 

them. 


Olivier Lorquin, President 

Patrizia Nitti, Artistic Director 

Scientific Committee 

Teresa Elena Cinquantaquattro, Superintendant, Special Superintendence for the Archeological 

Heritage of Naples and Pomeii, 

Alain Pasquier, Honorary General Curator 

Exhibition Commission 

Valeria Sampaolo, Director of the Naples National Archeological Museum 

Antonio Varone, Excavations Director at Pompeii 

Stefano De Caro, Honorary Director General of Archeological Heritage, professor at the University of 

Federico II in Naples 

Design 

Hubert Le Gall 

3

2. Presentation of the exhibition 

by Stefano De Caro, Honorary Director General of Archeological Heritage, professor 

at the University of Federico II in Naples 

A civilisation’s fall often leads to its oblivion. From this point of view the Roman Empire is 

unusual to say the least. Thanks to the precious work of the copyists in mediaeval 

monasteries, a large number of written sources by historians, poets, rhetoricians, architects 

and lawyers have come down to us. We can thus reconstruct, almost year by year, the 

history, political life and conquests of Rome, that little village of shepherds on the Palatine Hill 

that became the capital of the Mediterranean world, the centre of an empire stretching 

westwards and eastwards from the Atlantic to the borders of Mesopotamia, and to the north 

and south from Hadrian’s Wall to the Sudan. 

However this written knowledge is mainly about public events: battles, victories, or about the 

principles of law and major public building works. The ancient sources give us relatively little 

information about the private lives of ordinary people in the cities of the Empire, and where 

they do, it is glimpsed between the lines of a life of Caesar or within the exaggerated 

adventures of a Trimalchio. And the records don’t give us much more. Even when they are 

about private events such as death, their nature is essentially public. 

To tell the truth, most of what we know of the daily life of the Ancient Romans, and what 

forms the basis of our image of this civilisation – the image in films like Gladiator or in the 

novels of Lindsey Davis – is owed to the excavations started more than two and a half 

centuries ago in the coastal towns of the Gulf of Naples that were buried by Vesuvius in 79 

AD after the terrible eruption that in a few short hours put an end to all life there. Very few 

other events in the history of humanity can be compared to the magnitude of such 

destruction – probably only the ocean tsunamis in Asia or the atomic bombs of Hiroshima 

and Nagasaki. Yet, as Goethe realised, such a terrible event was destined to become a 

source of joy for posterity. Each new archeological discovery revealed by the excavations 

made people realise that this crystallisation had resulted in outstanding historical evidence. 

Even today, in an age when archeology has made huge progress right across the expanse 

that was the Roman Empire, and now that we know so much more about so many ancient 

sites, Pompeii has kept its value as a landmark, both as a precise, datable moment and also 

as a point of cultural comparison with all the discoveries that are made in the field of Roman 

antiquity. 

At the moment of their destruction, Pompeii and Herculaneum were towns that already had 

several centuries of history behind them, just like most Italian cities of the time. Yet politically 

they weren’t particularly important. And it’s exactly that “ordinary” nature that is worth 

highlighting, for these two towns constituted a representative sample of Roman civilisation, 

far from the distortions that the status of capital inevitably gave to Rome. 

That is why, right from the first archeological discoveries in the middle of the 18 th century, 

attention was drawn to the numerous traces of daily life. In Rome, or in the ancient 

European cities of Roman origin, you could certainly see great monuments, amphitheatres, 

temples, aqueducts, even roads, or impressive tombs that had survived the collapse of the 

4

ancient world and lasted into the Middle Ages. But where were the houses? No one had ever 

seen one in its entirety; there might just be the odd room hidden here and there in some 

cave in a Roman hill. Even if such rooms were occasionally magnificently decorated with 

frescoes, there was no Ancient Roman house that could be studied from the point of view of 

surveying it to try to understand what the ancient sources meant when they spoke of 

atriums, peristyles and tablinums. The shock came first at Pompeii, for at Herculaneum they 

had already started to excavate the theatre, discovering a plethora of statues in marble and 

bronze. Visitors to those Pompeii houses were impressed of course by the abundance of 

painted decorations and mosaics, as well as by the variety of objects found there, but above 

all they were struck by the small size of the buildings. Goethe went as far as calling them 

“dolls’ houses”, which hardly fitted with the expected “magnificence of the Ancient Romans”, 

if the etchings of Piranesi were to be relied upon. 

That surprise was soon followed by enthusiasm. These houses revealed an extremely refined 

way of life. There had been running water in every household, thanks to a system of 

hydraulic pipework, and every house had its own garden. There was a vibrant cultural life, 

even at a domestic level, as could be inferred from reading the many pieces of graffiti. 

Foreign religions were accepted, even within local sanctuaries. The dissolute of course 

praised the liberal approach to sex, but it could also be observed that an unexpected 

number of citizens took part in local elections. 

The shock was particularly harsh for young European architects who came to acquire their 

“good taste” in the Roman Academies, and who were obliged to study antiquity by copying 

the great classical monuments and by adopting the principles of Vitruvius. The Pompeii 

houses became the new models that they had to follow. As well as the usual surveys, these 

architects created “restorations” that would bring back colour and life to the bare ruins that 

Herculaneum and Pompeii had become. 

What also changed was that any artist who wanted to paint a Roman interior could from now 

on only take his inspiration from a Pompeii house and from the huge collection of furniture 

that the King of Naples put on display first in Portici then in Naples itself. The paintings and 

mosaics that were discovered also inevitably became models, whether it was the works left 

in situ or those that had been taken away and displayed in royal collections. The Napoleonic 

Neo-Classicism of David gave way to the more intimist pictures of the Romantic painters 

who were moved by Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel The Last Days of Pompeii. In that book 

the house of the protagonist, Glaucus, was directly inspired by one that was lovingly 

reconstructed by the archeologist Désiré-Raoul Rochette. It’s impossible too not to mention 

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who had a very rich collection of photographs from Pompeii that he 

kept in his studio. 

Those who had the means even wanted to have their own “Pompeinum” made, starting with 

King Louis I of Bavaria at Aschaffenburg, built by Friedrich von Gärtner between 1840 and 

1848. In Paris, Prince Napoleon (1822-1891), son of Jérôme Bonaparte, commissioned a 

“Pompeian House” for his residence at 18 avenue Montaigne, Paris, from the architect 

Alfred-Nicolas Normand. A former member of the Academy of France in Rome who had 

made magnificent drawings at Pompeii, Normand built what was without doubt his 

masterpiece, a town house which has disappeared today but which was recorded for 

5

posterity by Gustave Boulanger in a famous painting. And what about the Villa Kérylos, built 

at Beaulieu-sur-Mer by Théodore Reinach, which mixed Greece and Pompeii, or even the 

majestic villa built more recently for John Paul Getty at Malibu, directly modelled on the Villa 

des Papyrus at Herculaneum? 

This rediscovered world was quickly peopled with inhabitants. First, of course, were the 

heroes of novels such as Arria Marcella, dreamed up by Théophile Gautier. Then came 

plaster casts of the victims of the eruption, recreated by Fiorelli, using his own technique. 

Finally it was Pompeii’s ghosts, such as the haunting Gradiva in a story by W. Jensen, the 

subject of a famous psychoanalytical study by Sigmund Freud. 

With time archeologists have learnt to carry out detailed excavations of the Pompeian house 

– you could simply say the Roman house – distinguishing between the different types of 

design, eras of construction and styles of decoration. They have learnt to differentiate found 

objects increasingly accurately between those made locally and those that had been 

imported. They have discovered how to distinguish between the different social classes of 

the population, even though it is very difficult to do so: besides the citizens, they had to 

count freemen, slaves, who left almost no traces even though there were many of them, and 

women. This kind of knowledge makes a visit to Pompeii, to Herculaneum or to the Naples 

Museum even more interesting because it takes us beyond the cliché too often promoted by 

mass tourism, which all too easily portrays Pompeii as the town of pleasure and death. 

At what is a difficult time for the conservation of these ancient cities, an exhibition at the 

Musée Maillol on such an important subject as the Pompei house aims to remind Europe of 

the debt of knowledge its culture owes to Herculaneum and Pompeii. As unique witnesses to 

the ancient world, these towns are quite rightly classed as UNESCO world heritage sites. 

The more so because they belong to our culture, thanks to the excavations that have been 

carried out in these past centuries and which have made them part of the archeological 

techniques and artistic taste that are now ours. The Pompeii house is therefore doubly 

revealing: both of what we were 2,000 years ago and what we have been for the last two 

and a half centuries. 

6

3. A tour of the exhibition through the objects presented 

by Valeria Sampaolo, Director of the Naples Archeological Museum 

Exhibitions are often dedicated to artists, or particular eras or techniques. This one looks at 

art and its history through an original prism, that of the Roman house. At the end of the 

republican era and at the beginning of the Roman Empire, the patrician house effectively 

became the best way to show one’s prestige and social rank. Things were certainly a bit 

more difficult in Rome itself, where laws limited the display of luxury, in memory of the strict 

founding fathers of the Urbs. So it was in the outlying towns where free rein was given to 

more sophisticated comforts, starting with the constuction of houses out of unusual 

materials, sometimes specially imported from distant lands. The law in Rome also applied to 

provincial towns but the farther away one was from the once modest city that had become 

the capital of a huge empire, the more freedom there was in this kind of choice. The eruption 

of Vesuvius in AD 79 left us an incredible “freeze-frame image” of that moment. At the 

bottom of an agricultural valley a town of no particular importance was frozen in an instant by 

the ash, which allowed it to travel through time. It was called Pompeii: the name has become 

mythical, but also as a place that bears unprecedented witness to the way of life of our 

distant ancestors almost 2,000 years ago. 

To create this exhibition we decided to draw on the main places that hold the essence of 

Pompeii’s memory – the archeological site itself, of course, and even more so the collections 

of artifacts, especially those of the Naples Archeological Museum, which I have the honour of 

directing. The idea of the exhibition was simple and effective: it was to recreate the 

experience of a visit that a passing stranger might have made to a wealthy home in Pomeii 

on an ordinary day. Let’s try to imagine what this experience would be like, to put ourselves 

in the place of the stranger. 

Before being presented to the master of the house, the visitor is still in the atrium. He looks 

at the inner walls decorated with pictures of gods or winged genies. The pond filled with 

rainwater sends dancing reflections across the frescoes. Next to it is a marble table and the 

opening of a well that gives access to an underground cistern. Further on there’s a sturdy 

safe in iron and bronze, then the “lararium” shrine, the chapel where there are small bronze 

statues of the household gods as well as other more important ones – certainly an Isis for 

one, because she protects those with maritime connections to Roman provinces in Africa 

and Egypt. It will put the visitor in mind of other auguries to be found throughout the house, 

probably including a fresco in the kitchen showing domestic gods who appear to dance as 

they hold aloft the ritual drinking horn overflowing with wine, close to great snakes that slither 

towards the small altar on which are spread realistic-looking sausages, meats and pigs’ 

heads. 

You have to pass through a gallery, the tablinum, to get to private part of the house. Painted 

on the walls are landscapes showing cities spread out across several perspectives, starting 

7

with blind loggias that seem to appear like a trompe-l’oeil. Other scenes describe such and 

such adventure of the gods or ancient heroes, modernised and made popular by poets of 

the time. Here you can see the tools needed for writing and for doing accounts, such as a 

stylet, wax tablets and a roll of papyrus. Our visitor then goes past the cubicula, dimly-lit 

bedrooms and, next to the back entrance, he notices the venereum, a bedroom where 

slaves were prostituted (a source of income for the household), on the walls of which are 

pictures of lovers in positions that don’t need to be explained here. 

Our man waits for the master of the house in one of the large rooms that open on to the 

colonnade that surrounds the private garden. Walking across it, he stops for a moment to 

see if the peacock on the railing is real or if it’s part of the fresco on the back wall, behind 

bushes that actually are real. On the wall there’s also a niche decorated with mosaics, and a 

fountain, or rather a nymphaeum. The fantastic world of nymphs – who lived in waters and 

woods – is also evoked by the group of marble statues representing Pan and a satyr, as well 

as by the oscilla, these mobile discs featuring satyrs and Silenus. And finally let’s not forget 

the masks of marble and clay hanging between two columns of the peristyle, or the little 

statues of animals with jets of water coming out of them. 

At last we enter the triclinium, the dining room with beds in it, where they lie back to eat their 

meals. The bedheads are shaped like young satyrs, or heads of swans or mules. On the low 

brass tables there are finest ceramic plates with a reddish-orange sheen. Glass plates are 

more ordinary but lighter, too, in an infinite variety of colours, from blue to lemon yellow and 

iridescent green. In the Satyricon by Petronius, Trimalchio states that it’s better to eat and 

drink out of glass than metal because glass has no smell; he even preferred it to gold, 

though he did complain about its fragility, but then this mythical chef didn’t have to think 

about money…. Still in the dining room we can see bronze meat skewers and precious silver 

cups in ancient designs of unparalleled luxury. And then there are the little spoons with their 

pointed handles designed to remove shellfish and other crustaceans from their shells. There 

was plenty of technical progress in Pompeii, especially in the two appliances that could be 

used for either heating or cooling drinks, depending on whether you put in a piece of coal or 

snow – and in southern Italy it was more often the latter. As the evening begins to draw on, 

we see the lighting of beautiful bronze lanterns (the luxury version of clay ones), either 

perched high above the candelabras, hung from the trees or from some motionless youth, 

also made of bronze. 

Our visitor has other ways of observing the calibre of the people whose house he’s in: by 

looking at the jewellery of the mistress of the house; or even just from the frescoes. In this 

other triclinium, for example, the one showing Dionysis discovering Ariadne is so subtle that 

it must have been painted by craftsmen who’d come from Rome. Elsewhere you can even 

recognise the Emperor Nero in the guise of Orestes beside his cousin Pylades. 

So the stranger knows that he is in a fashionable house and that his hosts no longer need to 

go to the public baths to wash themselves, as they did not too long ago, because they have 

a private balneum where you only need to turn on the tap to get running water from lead 

8

pipes. The bronze bath-tub that had to be filled by hand has been replaced by one in 

marble. Everything needed for body care is in there: the after-bath scrapers to get rid of the 

creams used liberally for rubbing and massage, as well as bottles and vials of perfumed oils 

that were applied to the hair, clothes and on feet – sometimes during banquets. 

Food was important, of course, and then – like now – it was not so much the quantity that 

counted but the quality. That was linked to the provenance of the ingredients used, which 

could be deduced from the varying shapes of containers depending on whether they came 

from Africa, Greece or Gaul, and whether they were used for oil, wine or sauce. The way the 

table was laid was also important, as was the care and attention paid by the slaves to satisfy 

all the dinner guests. In his Satires, Horace gave us a memorable picture of the arrival of a 

huge plate on which were pieces of crane covered in salt, coated with meal and with the liver 

of a well-fed goose. That must lead to indigestion – and shortly to the end of our visit. 

The artifacts chosen to feature in the exhibition don’t all come from the same house of 

course. Some of them first came to light in the 18 th century, such as the two superb 

frescoes, even if they are incomplete, taken from the house of the lyre player. The beautiful 

photophore, on the other hand, comes from the house of Fabius Rufus, which was 

discovered only at the end of the 20 th century; as is the case with the house of Julius 

Polibus, where this magnificent bronze bowl was found. But at Pompeii there weren’t only 

houses that were stuffed with precious things. The longest painted frieze ever found was in a 

very bare home. In Paris we won’t have the whole work but just the part showing a small 

boat on the Nile, in which every detail celebrates life, from the still-life wicker baskets to the 

pins in the women’s bodices and the lantern in which the flame is protected by sheets of 

mica. It’s proof that in Pompeii the taste for a pleasant life and for fine detail was not just the 

preserve of the very rich. 

9

4. « Love on the walls » 

by Antonio Varone, Excavations Director at Pompeii 

In the middle of the 18 th century the excavations started on the Pompeii site. As the work 

advanced, an entire town was returning to the light of day, with its streets, monuments and 

houses – and, inside these, furniture, paintings and splendid mosaics. Besides material 

things, they were rediscovering the organisation and cultural way of life of a whole society. 

Imagine the surprise of the archeologists of the time at the discovery of numerous outsized 

phalluses, some even that had wings or animal features! They were all over the place: along 

the streets, on walls and floors, as well as outside certain shops. The were sculpted in lowrelief 

or in the round but they were found in paintings too, where seemingly at every street 

corner visitors to the ruins were stunned by the sight of men endowed with gigantic, 

monstrous penises. 

Then when houses were uncovered with painted frescoes showing erotic scenes in crude 

realism, Pompeii was immediately judged to be a town of perversion and luxury from a moral 

point of view, a new Sodom which must have deserved its divine punishment. These moral 

judgments meant that Pompeii artifacts showing erotic acts, or with even with a hint of the 

erotic about them, were very soon dispatched to the “secret cabinet” in the Naples Museum. 

Thus they tried to bury this far too explicit reality in an inaccessible place where it wouldn’t 

cause offence. At the same time the places where this kind of object and image had 

remained in situ were closed to the public almost until the present day. What was even more 

shocking than the images themselves was the explicit way in which they were in full view of 

everyone. 

If we want to have a full understanding of this phenomenon, first we have to place the town 

of Pompeii in its historical context. There was nothing unusual about it; it was a very ordinary 

town in the Roman world, close enough to Rome in this first century AD to be completely 

integrated in its social fabric. We also have to try to get rid of our preconceptions, the result 

of f 2,000 years of change in thought and religion. These are what influence our approach to 

the matter, both morally and socially, to a greater or lesser extent . 

We have to recognise that in a society that knew neither doubt nor sin nor prudishness nor 

the malice typical of out time, sex was experienced with much greater simplicity. Of course 

this spontaneity often showed itself in a crude way and eroticism looked completely different 

from what we are used to today. 

The Roman world didn’t need circumlocution or veils, physical or mental, to cover up human 

nudity. The rules about sex were mainly concerned with purely social aspects, not morality. 

They eagerly but apparently innocently pursued practices that today are considered as 

perversions, without ever thinking of them as such. The very concept of obscenity didn’t 

exist, no more than that of morbidity, even for acts and habits that unanimously offend our 

current sensitivities as being unacceptable violations. 

Above all, sex for the Romans was a positive phenomenon, a source of joy and life, a thing 

of magic. It even had a religious aspect that linked it to human destiny. The “physical” was 

the goddess of reproducing life whom the people of Pompeii worshipped as their protectress 

during the Samnite period. In the Roman era she quite naturally became identified with the 

goddess of love, Venus. 

That’s why the phallus was shown on the tombs of men and the uterus on those of women, 

to show respectively the genius and the luno of the dead, this supernatural germinating force 

10

that continues to exert its influence even after death. That is what makes life continue 

through new generations. 

From this point of view we can understand why there would be no shame in representing a 

phallus; it is not remotely an “obscene” image that should be removed from sight, not even 

from the sight of children. If it’s shown as being outsized that’s the better to summon its 

magical power that can ward off evil spirits and protect the house and workplace from the 

evil eye. This phallic god was Fascinus who, like Priapus, god of fertility in the garden, would 

punish with the power of his fleshy weapon anyone who tried to harm him. 

What innocent eye could disapprove of the image of this vital force offering protection and 

wealth at the house door? What guest could take offence on entering a home where wellbeing 

was guaranteed by this god who prevented evil from crossing the threshold? Such 

images don’t come from vice and there is nothing obscene about them. They are more the 

result of the age-old fear of dark forces and the desperate attempt to be protected against 

them. So the phallus fully belongs to the religious mystique of life. And it was in this religious 

place dedicated to life’s mysteries that young girls went through the initiation rites that 

marked their passage from adolescence to sexual maturity. 

Sex then is divine. So it’s quite natural that the joy and pain of sexuality were projected into 

the world of the gods, even if that transposition was both subtle and ambiguous. On the 

divine scale there was the whole range of passions, vices and virtues that go together with 

sex in love’s eternal game. The gods’ acts and the situations they experience are intimately 

linked to the inexplicable mysteries of sex. Venus, the goddess of love, thus has a major role: 

it’s she who captures the human soul and gives no mercy to whoever has the misfortune to 

be caught in her nets. 

The figure of Hermaphrodite with his mixed characteristics of male and female, is also bound 

up in sexual uncertainty. This god is treated with respectful silence. And if Hermaphrodite 

was often represented at the time as being between sleep and wakefulness it’s because we 

have to understand that this state is something close to a trance. As he combines in a single 

body the double nature of man and woman, Hermaphrodite has access to the saint of saints 

of Nature herself, he knows her mysteries and anticipates her choices. Didn’t the blind 

Teiresius, the most famous soothsayer of the classical world, experience the condition of 

being a man as well as being a woman? 

The respectful, meditative atmosphere that surrounds the personality of Hermaphrodite is 

occasionally contradicted by his sarcastic smile, evidence of another aspect often found in 

these erotic paintings: irony. This distancing aims to moderate the crude sexual nature of 

some pictures so as to make them more socially acceptable. It’s most often the case when a 

male figure in a Dionysian party – whether it’s Pan, a satyr or even Silenus – becomes 

infatuated with Hermaphrodite’s female curves, which he mistakes from behind for a female 

follower of Bacchus. Very quickly he changes his tune as he discovers with disgust that the 

lower belly of his designated victim reveals an object of desire that is not quite what he had in 

mind! 

If the Romans projected an ideal love on to the divine world, in their myths we find a more 

impulsive and guilty kind of love. For it’s there that we find indecent stories that would not 

have been thought acceptable in real life but they still excited the imagination. One of the 

subjects most often described is of a sexual attack by a satyr on a maenad: the subject of 

sexual violence by men, which cannot be justified or tolerated by any society, is thus 

transposed to a “neutral” setting. Some researchers believe that such violence is typical of 

the Ancient Roman world, where such standards of behaviour prevailed. 

11

It is this subject that is behind one of the inscriptions that will be shown in the exhibition, an 

incitement to a young girl who is furious at having been forcibly kissed to enjoy the pleasures 

of love: “Oh sensual young girl, you begrudge me my stolen kisses: I am certainly not the first 

one. Accept them and love! Prosperity to all who love.” That last phrase is a reference to a 

rather bawdy song found written more than once on the walls of Pompeii: “Prosperity to 

those who love, death to those who don’t know how to love; and death twice over to those 

who prevent love.” 

And it’s really this graffiti, scribbled on walls with a pointed stylet, that best brings back to us 

in the anonymous voices of Pompeii how much love was an integral part of the earthly 

condition of man at that time. It shows us the true face of a time when humanity could fully 

experience the spirituality that is part of the nature of love, in an intimate meeting of flesh and 

feeling. 

Emerging from this unknown chorus is the most authentic face of a society for whom love 

meant anguish, torment and jealousy for sure, but also sensuality, passion and serenity. 

Listen to those voices a bit more. The voice of a stranger who wants to go home to Rome to 

embrace his household gods but who is detained in Pompeii by an insurmountable obstacle, 

as we read on a wall: “We came here full of desire, but our desire to leave is even more 

intense; alas, this young girl won’t allow it.” The smile of a young girl, her eyes that demand 

to be gazed into, they all prevent him from turning for home. It’s desire, too, that leads 

another to write a delicate complaint, in which unattainable happiness is bound up with 

hope: “Happy are those who share the sleep of the night with you! Ah, if I was one of them I 

would be so much happier!” Finally, in another couplet, the exciting languor of desire comes 

across as a sophisticated and painful sensuality: “For a mere hour I would like to be the jewel 

in your ring, so that when you moisten it with your lips to mark your seal, I would be able to 

give you all the kisses that I have no right to lavish on you.” 

To exult in sex, just as to experience it, is a basic human need. When it’s not associated with 

any notion of sin it’s easy to indulge in such exultation. What the walls of Pompeii reveal is 

the maturity of a people who have been able to find a balance between sexual desire and 

moral behaviour. 

12

5. Extracts from the catalogue 

« The matron in her house » 

By Marine Bretin-Chabrol, master of conferences in Latin language and literature at the 

University of Lyons. 

In Roman society at the beginning of the Empire there wasn’t a unique and universal family 

model within which the feminine condition could be depicted. Women’s lives were 

determined as much by the social structures they belonged to within Roman society as by 

their sex. It depended on whether they were slaves, freemen or born free, their age, their 

place in a network of family and alliances, their social status (dignitas), meaning their place, 

through their father or husband, within a perhaps prestigious order (senatorial, equestrian, 

etc) and in an electoral class conferred by their fortune. 

To our modern eyes the matron who was a free woman, legitimately married, and from a 

privileged social rank seems a deceptively familiar figure. At the age of 12, but more often 

between 15 and 18, the young free-born girl puts on the orange marriage veil and goes 

through the rite of leaving her parents’ house to move to that of her new husband. By 

marrying, she becomes the wife of her husband (uxor), the mistress of her house (domina) 

and, in the eyes of society, a married woman and therefore respectable (matrona, or even 

materfamilias). Outside the house she now wears the stola, a long dress with sleeves, as 

evidence of her new status. She is allowed to practise the religious rites reserved for married 

women, such as those of Bona Dea, Pudicitia, Fortuna Muliebris or Juno Caprotina, and she 

receives gifts from her husband for the Matronalia festival. 

(…) 

At the heart of the house, the wife is not cloistered in special quarters. But she has to avoid 

disturbing her husband’s strictly masculine activities, such as the mornings when he receives 

clients in the atrium. Apart from the time she spends washing and dressing, helped by one or 

more servants, she spends the days in that same atrium, in the company of her children who 

will be playing or studying. From here she supervises the work of the domestic slaves, who 

could number as many as several dozen in the wealthiest households; she receives her own 

vassals (the former freed slaves of her father’s, for example) and runs her affairs. She invites 

her parents and friends, or her husband’s friends, in the reception areas of the house: the 

suites, peristyles or gardens. In the evening she attends dinners (cenae) and banquets 

(conuiuia) organised through her husband, if the invitation includes wives. She drinks, plays 

dice and goes to entertainments, but also watches over the serving of the meals. 

13

« Water, and its uses around the home » 

By Hélène Dessales, master of archaeological conferences, Ecole normale supérieure, Paris 

“You ask for hot water; I don’t have cold water yet.” This complaint by the poet Martial (Ep. 

8, 67, 7-8) gives us some idea of how the provision of water and its various uses were 

valued in a Roman home. Little evidence remains of those uses, making any restoration 

difficult. However, the exceptionally well-preserved vestiges found at Pompei at least provide 

a key to understanding the different levels of water provision, and the types of equipment 

involved, whether for providing communal services or those in individual homes. By following 

the trail of piping that is still visible at the site, or by the marks left behind, archaeological 

studies can now evaluate the role that water played in the home, and how that role was 

reflected in three main areas: the way in which the urban water network was organised, the 

link between water and hygiene, and the role of water in décor. In Pompeii, what remains of 

the city’s hydraulics therefore tells us about the lives of its residents, from their daily routines 

to their personal and cultural habits. 

« Gardens » 

Annamaria Ciarallo, Director of the Applied Sciences Laboratory of the Archeological 

Superintendence of Naples and Pompeii. 

Pompeii’s vegetable plots and gardens constitute an exceptional record. It’s the only 

evidence that has come down to us about the organisation of green spaces in a provincial 

town of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago. 

Thanks to new research techniques, especially since 1970, we have been able to identify the 

plants that were cultivated in antiquity, which has allowed us to reconstruct former gardens. 

Like today’s cities, Pompeii wasn’t just made up of streets and buildings. Every house, 

whether it was rich or poor, had its own garden. There were also green spaces aimed at the 

general population: baths, gymnasiums and temples. Burial grounds were confined to the 

outskirts of the town. 

In these gardens, some of them very extensive, others no bigger than a pocket handkerchief, 

they grew plants that were used in everyday life, both to feed the family and to sell at the 

local market. 

Some crops, such as grapes, were particularly important for the town’s economy. Others 

were used in locally made products. Sweet-smelling plants were used to produce essences 

that were employed to make ointments and perfumes, while others went into making 

wreaths for religious offerings. 

The fertile soil allowed for intensive farming and several harvests a year. They specialised in 

vegetables that could be preserved in vinegar or brine so that they could be consumed 

throughout the year. They also grew a lot of hazelnuts, figs, apples, pears and grapes for the 

table that could be eaten either fresh or dried. Peaches and figs were conserved in honey. 

Even in pleasure gardens the most popular plants were medicinal ones for home use, as well 

as other plants used for domestic purposes. 

14

« The discovery of Pompeii and its effects on European culture » 

By Cesare de Seta, Professor of Art History at the Italian Institute of Human Sciences 

Florence-Naples 

In 1745, five years after excavations were halted at Herculaneum, causing intense debate 

right across Europe, the King of Naples, Charles de Bourbon, authorised the restarting of 

archeological investigations around the little town of Civita. The Spanish engineer Roque 

Joachim de Alcubierre had trenches dug to examine the bowels of the earth. It was the end 

of March and the beginning of April 1748 when a few painted murals were brought to light 

and quickly restored by the painter Carnat. Then there was a helmet, until, on April 19, they 

discovered the first body mummified by the lava, as well as a lot of coins. After that, the yield 

was ever greater, but it wasn’t until 1756 that the name of Pompeii first appeared in the 

excavation records. It became the plot of a veritable story within a story, involving scholars 

from the whole of Europe, but also artists whose job is was to send out pictures of what the 

whole world wanted to see: an ancient town that had been miraculously preserved. 

The discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii was a huge event in the history of taste and 

culture in the Age of Enlightenment. It wasn’t just a connection with antiquity that was being 

renewed from top to bottom but it was also a moment when thought was restructured in one 

fell swoop. In this sense the shock was unprecedented. It can even be likened to the cultural 

revolution praised by the humanists at the beginning of the 15 th century. This too was a 

veritable Renaissance, in rationalist thought as well as in the arts. The philosopher 

Giambattista Vico used these archeological discoveries to suggest a new interpretation of 

classical antiquity, a real premise of historical modernity. 

The excavations of the town of Pompeii were conducted using a technique that many today 

would consider to be looting. Rather than a unitary reconstruction of the town environment, 

the emphasis was mainly on digging for archeological artifacts that were then taken away to 

the royal villas at Portici, which were turned into a temporary museum. “They were digging 

just to find treasures,” John Moore notes, adding regretfully, that “the curious are not allowed 

to write about them, still less to draw these antiquities”. It was a complaint that was also 

made several times by Johan Joachim Winckelmann, as well as by François Latapie. 

Drawn by the news from Naples, the residents of the Academy of France in Rome, together 

with many foreign artists, quickly added a relatively lengthy visit to Herculaneum and Pompeii 

to their travels. The drawings that they did manage to take away with them fed into the taste 

for things Greek with a Herculanean-Pompeian style that was to have lasting effects on the 

arts in the second half of the 18 th century, culminating in the empire style. Pompeii’s success 

helped to increase cultural exchanges between Paris and Naples, especially among 

intellectuals. 

Thus the site of Pompeii found an echo throughout Europe: the tomb of Mamia is a 

particularly significant example, as much for its unusual appearance as for the descriptions of 

it that Goethe wrote in his journal. The books of Saint-Non and the engravings by the 

Hackert brothers familiarised the whole of Europe with the marvels of Pompeii. 

15

English artists, just like their French colleagues, played a principal role in this rediscovery. 

Robert Adam, Robert Mylne and Nathaniel Dance left for Italy in 1754; Dance didn’t reach 

Pompeii until a decade later, accompanied by his brother George Dance Jr, who was to play 

a decisive role in the spread of English Neo-Classicism. These examples, despite their 

sometimes substantial differences, are persuasive proof of how, between 1740 and 1760, 

the first generation of “reinventors” of antiquity, homing in on Herculaneum, Pompeii and 

Paestum, formed a kind of fellowship that followed the same route and provoked the same 

enthusiasm. This class of people, full of rivalries, were desperate for new discoveries; they 

engaged in lively debate about the preeminence of Greek art over Roman; they collected 

archeological artifacts, studied them, made drawings of them and cultivated a new taste in 

many European countries. The forest of names that made up such a group is a veritable 

labyrinth of paths that converge and separate. They all remain in the shadow of two giants, 

however: Piranesi on one side and Winckelmann on the other – both completely different 

from one another. 

The Napoleonic era signalled a decisive step in the excavations at Pompeii. No longer was 

the work focused only on gathering archeological artifacts; now it was also about conserving 

the buildings. It wasn’t long before an entire town came out of the earth. 

16

6. List of the objects on show 

These objects belong to the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e 

Pompei 

Statue honoraire d'homme en 

toge 

marbre 

H. 190 ; base 76 cm 

Inv. 6231 

MANN 

Statue honoraire de femme 

drapée 

marbre 

H. 190 cm 

Inv. 6250 

MANN 

Bague-sceau 

bronze 

H. max. 3 ; L. 6,5 ; l. 2 cm 

Inv. 4748 

MANN 

Moulage des corps de deux 

jeunes filles, Casa del 

Criptoportico, reproduction 

plâtre 

Fouilles de Pompéi 

(Antiquarium de Boscoreale) 

20 pièces de monnaie 

Or, argent et bronze 

MANN 

Encrier 

bronze et argent 

H. 5,8 ; diam. 5,2 cm 

S.N./436 

MANN 

Buste d'homme 

marbre 

H. 33 cm 

Inv. 55514 (ex 3015) 


* MANN : Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli 

Statue honoraire d'homme en 

toge 

marbre 

H. 205 cm 

Inv. 6234 

MANN 

Maquette de la maison du 

"Poète tragique" 

bois 

H. 63 ; L. 95 ; l. 66 cm 



Clef 

bronze 

l. 8 cm 

Inv. 71406 

MANN 

Moulage de chien, 

reproduction 

plâtre 

H. 60 ; L. 60 ; l. 60 cm 


Tire-lire terre-cuite 

Terre cuite 

H. 15,2 ; diam. Inf. 6,4 cm 

MANN 

Quatre panneaux avec puttis 

musiciens 

fresque 

H. 30 ; L. 165 cm 

Inv. 9176 

MANN 

Fresque au génie ailé, 

fragment 

fresque 

H. 77 ; L. 67,5 cm 

Inv. 8830 

MANN 

Statue honoraire de femme 

drapée 

marbre 

H. 148 cm 

Inv. 6248 

MANN 

Médaillon avec villa à la mer, 

fresque (fragment) 

H. 25 ; L. 25 cm 

Inv. 9511 

MANN 

Serrure 

bronze 

Diam. 13,5 cm 

Inv. 122601 

MANN 

Enduit aux graffiti, fragment 

H. 20 ; L. 63 cm 

Inv. 20564 


Fresque aux instruments 

d'écriture, (instrumentum 

scriptorium) 

fresque 

H. 36 ; L. 31 cm 

Inv. 9822 

MANN 

Lampe à suspension 

bronze 

H. 44 ; diam. 17,8 cm 

Inv. 43468 


Fresque à l'homme oriental 

assis 

fresque 

H. 97,5 ; L. 86 cm 

Inv. 9368 

MANN 

17

Fresque avec Dionysos 

trônant 

fresque 

H. 81 ; L. 67 cm 

Inv. 9546 

MANN 

Margelle de puits 

marbre 

H. 62 ; diam. base 51; diam. 

bord 47,5 cm 

Inv. 120175 

MANN 

Fresque avec Vénus et 

Cupidon 

fresque 

H. 51 ; L. 47 cm 

Inv. 8897 

MANN 

Lare dansant 

bronze 

H. 21,5 cm 

Inv. 113262 

Isis/Fortune 

Bronze 

H. 16,4 ; diam. base 5,4 cm 

Inv.5316 

MANN 

Petit autel 

Terre cuite 

H. 25,4 ; L. 21,9 ; l. 18 cm 

Inv. 11669 


Enduit aux graffiti, fragment, 

maison de Julius Polybius 

enduit/fresque 

H. 90 ; L. 82 cm 

Inv. ---- 


Coffre-fort 

bois, fer et bronze 

H. 101 ; L. 58 ; l. 92 cm 

Inv. 73021 

MANN 

Tuile faîtière avec gouttière 

provenant de la maison de 

Julius Polybius 

Terre cuite 

H. 28 ; L. 86 ; l. 77 cm 

Inv. 27014 


Hercule 

bronze 

H. 14,8 ; base H. 5,2 ; L. 5,6 

cm 

Inv. 113260 

Mercure 

bronze 

H. 17,7 ; L. 10 cm 

Inv. 115554 

MANN 

Esculape 

Terre cuite 

H. 19,6 cm 

Inv. 6946 


Brûle parfum en forme de 

berceau 

Terre cuite 

H. 11; L. 13,6 ; l. 8,8 cm 

Inv. 10946 


Entonnoir 

bronze 

H. 20,5 ; diam. 12,9 cm 

Inv. 73849 

MANN 

Table (cartibulum), avec 

piètement en forme de griffon 

marbre 

H. 85 ; L. 141 ; l. 78 cm 

Inv. 40683 



Fresque de laraire (Terzigno) 

H. 210 ; L. 260 cm 

Inv. 86755 



Lare dansant, bronze 

bronze 

H. 21 cm 

Inv. 113261 

MANN 

Jupiter 

bronze 

H.18,5 ; diam. base 6,5 cm 

Inv. 111022 

Génie 

bronze 

H. 23 ; base H. 8 ; L. 8 cm 

Inv 133334 

MANN 

Brûle parfum au serpent 

Terre cuite 

H. 15,3 cm 

Inv. 121605 

MANN 

Moule à gâteau en forme de 

coquille Saint-Jacques 

bronze 

H. 9 ; diam. 20 cm 

Inv. 76235 

MANN 

18

Moule à gâteau en forme de 

coquille Saint-Jacques 

bronze 

H. 4 ; diam. 13,5 cm 

Inv. 76262 

MANN 

Poêle 

bronze 

L. 17,3 ; l. 49 cm 

Inv. 76599 

MANN 

Amphore crétoise à vin 

Terre cuite 

H. 70 ; diam. 29,5 cm 

Inv. 4782 B 



Amphore espagnole à huile 

Terre cuite 

H. 54,5 ; diam. 39,2 cm 

Inv. 52925 



Askos en forme de renard ou 

de chien de Malte 

Terre cuite 

H. 13 ; L. 16 ; l. 9,4 cm 

Inv.11911 



Poids pour balance 

basalte 

H. 7,9 ; L. 11,1 cm 

Inv. 54848 




basalte 

H. 3,8 ; L. 4,1 cm 

Inv. 6888 B 



Moule à gâteau 

bronze 

L. 24 ; l. 20 cm 

Inv. 76456 

MANN 

Louche 

bronze 

l. 28,7 cm 

Inv. 77636 

MANN 

Amphore nord-africaine à huile 

Terre cuite 

H. 88 ; diam. 33,5 cm 

Inv. 58180 



Amphore pompéienne à huile, 

(dressel 2/4) 

Terre cuite 

H. 92,9 ; diam. 30 cm 

Inv. 25129 



Balance à plateau 

bronze 

H. 56,3 ; L. réglette 25,3 ; 

diam. plateau 13 cm 

Inv. 43469 




basalte 

H. 4,8 ; L. 6,6 cm 

Inv. 55813 



Trépied de cuisine 

fer 

H. 14; L. 27 cm 

Inv. 10539 



Poêle rectangulaire 

bronze 

H. 18,4 ; L. 18,4 cm 

Inv. 76555 

MANN 

Pot à une anse 

Terre cuite à parois fines 

H. 10 ; diam. 8 cm 

Inv. 187627 

MANN 

Amphore espagnole à garum 

Terre cuite 

H. 91 ; diam. 29 cm 

Inv. 31161 



Askos en forme de coq 

Terre cuite 

H. 31,5 ; L. 34,5 cm 

Inv. 13350 




basalte 

H. 10 ; L. 14 cm 

Inv. 54847 




basalte 

H. 3,6 ; L. 5,2 cm 

Inv. 3355 



Gril 

fer 

H. 7,8 ; L. 21; l. totale 39 cm 

Inv. 41448 



19

Récipient pour la cuisson 

(caccabus) 

Terre cuite 

H. 9 ; diam. 20 cm 

Inv. 25316 



Bouteille à garum 

Terre cuite 

H. 50 ; diam. 13 cm 

Inv. 81743 



Four portatif (clibanos) 

Terre cuite 

H. 43 ; diam. 45 cm 

Inv. 85204 



Panneau représentant 

Iphigénie en Tauride 

fresque 

H. 154 ; L. 163 cm 

Inv. 9111 

MANN 

Trois médaillons 

fresque 

H. 34 ; L. 90 cm 

Inv. 9129 

MANN 

Panneau avec panier de 

figues 

fresque 

H. 52,6 ; L. 75 ; P. 3 cm 

Inv. 20612 



Carreaux de pavement 

hexagonal 

Marbre coloré (jaune ancien) 

H. 11 ; côté 14 cm 

Inv. 20505 


Récipient pour la cuisson 

(caccabus) 

bronze 

H. 12 ; diam. 21,2 cm 

Inv. 55095 



Poêle rectangulaire 

bronze 

H. 5 ; diam. 26 cm 

Inv. 55705 



Situle 

bronze 

H. 33,4 ; diam. 37 cm 

Inv. 1115 



Panneau avec Dionysos et 

Ariane 

fresque 

H. 195 ; L. 166 cm 

Inv. 9286 

MANN 

Panneau avec nature morte : 

anguilles et rougets, fresque 

fresque 

MANN 

Panneau avec panier de fruits 

fresque 

H. 55 ; L. 35,8 ; P. 3,5 cm 

Inv. 20621 



Carreaux de pavement carré 

Marbre coloré (jaune ancien) 

Côté 26 cm 

Inv. 41365 


Poêle 

Terre cuite 

H. 7,1 ; diam. 26,3 ; l. 31 cm 

Inv. 56169 



Mosaïque avec bouteille à 

garum 

H. 73,8 ; L. 30,6 cm 

Inv. 15189 



Fresques du triclinium de 

Carmiano 

Divers panneaux : H. 264 ; L. 

max. 478 cm 

Inv. 63683-7 

Fouilles de Stabia 

Panneau avec Narcisse et 

Putti 

fresque 

H. 69,5 ; L. 68 cm 

in. 9385 

MANN 

Panneau avec nature morte 

aux pommes dans un pot en 

verre 

fresque 

H. 45 ; L. 45 cm 

Inv. 8610 

MANN 

Panneau avec trois natures 

mortes 

fresque 

H. 21,5 ; L. 97,5 cm 

Inv. 8628 

MANN 

Mosaïque avec motif de portail 

Inv. 11065 



20

Médaillon avec Bacchus et 

Ménade 

fresque 

H. 45 ; L. 45 cm 

Inv. 9284 

MANN 

Tasse à deux anses 

argent 

H. 6,2 ; L. 15,5 cm 

Inv. 7484 


Louche 

argent 

H. 9 ; diam. 5 cm 

Inv. 25715 

MANN 

Cuillère 

argent 

l. 14,8 cm 

Inv. 25397 

MANN 

Lampe à bec en forme de 

souris 

bronze 

H. 9,5 ; l. 21 cm 

Inv. 72172 

MANN 

Candélabre à quatre bras en 

forme d'arbre 

bronze 

H. 56,5 cm 

Inv. 72226 

MANN 

Lampe à bec (soudée au 

support Inv. 6883) 

bronze 

H. 8; l. 14,5 cm 

Inv. 20306 



Olpé 

argent 

H. 15,5 ; diam. 7 cm 

Inv. 7478 


Tasse à deux anses 

argent 

H. 5,7 ; L. 12,4 cm 

Inv. 7487 


Soucoupe 

argent 

H. 2,5 ; diam. 10,2 cm 

Inv. 25354 

MANN 

Petite cuillère 

argent 

l. 14,5 cm 

Inv. 25604 

MANN 

Lampe à bec avec anse en 

forme de tête de chien 

bronze 

H. 10 ; l. 14 cm 

Inv. 2225 

MANN 

Candélabre en forme de 

portail 

bronze 

H. 25,5 ; base H. 17,7 ; L. 

13,2 cm 

Inv. 21812 


Table à piètement avec putto 

chevauchant un dauphin 

bronze 

H. 107 ; base H. 80 ; L. 50 

cm 

Inv. 13371 



Patère 

argent 

H. 8 ; diam. 16,8; l. 29,5 cm 

Inv. 7481 


Coupe au motif de strigiles 

argent 

H. 6 ; diam. 9,5 cm 

Inv. 25291 

MANN 

Soucoupe 

argent 

H. 2 ; diam. 11 cm 

Inv. 25587 

MANN 

Lampe à bec avec motif de 

palme 

bronze 

H. 9 ; l. 21 cm 

s.n.337 

MANN 

Lampe à bec avec tête de 

nubien 

bronze 

H.5 ; L. 7,5 ; l. 12 cm 

Inv. 133320 

MANN 

Support de lampe (soudé à la 

lampe à bec Inv. 20306) 

bronze 

H. 131 cm 

Inv. 6883 



Table pliante tripode 

bronze 

H. 110 cm 

Inv. 73951 

MANN 

21

Petite table 

bois et bronze 

H. 66 ; L. 58 cm 

Inv. 3303 


Tête de lit (fulcrum) à tête de 

cygne 

bronze 

H. 21 ; L. 32 cm 

Inv. 13115 


Table avec plan en mosaïque 

et pieds en marbre en forme 

de pattes de lion 

plateau diam. 112 ; pieds H. 

89 cm 

s.n. 

MANN 

Satyre dansant 

bronze 

H. 8,3 cm 

Inv. 27733 

MANN 

Assiette à pied 

terre sigillée 

H. 5 ; diam. 16,5 cm 

Inv. 16352 

MANN 

Calice au couple d'amoureux 

céramique d'Arezzo 

H. 13,1 ; diam. 15,7 cm 

Inv. 20568 



Cratère avec figures 

mythologiques de héros 

bronze repoussé 

H. 62,5 ; diam. 35,5 cm 

Inv. 45180 



Tabouret 

bronze 

H. 28,8 ; L. 25 cm 

Inv. 3753 


Pied de lit 

bronze 

H. 30 cm 

Inv. 21757 


Statue d'éphèbe soutien de 

table 

bronze 

H. 137 cm 

Inv.13112 



Satyre ityphallique 

s'aspergeant d'eau 

bronze 

H. 9,2 cm 

s.n. 

MANN 

Coupe provenant du sud de la 

Gaule 


H. 6,5 ; diam. 14 cm 

Inv. 112915 

MANN 

Rhyton 

céramique à parois fines 

H. 16 ; L. 7,1 ; l. 15,5 cm 

Inv. 11435 



Braséro 

bronze 

H. 96 ; diam. 44 cm 

Inv. 6798 


Tête de lit (fulcrum) à tête de 

mulet et putto 

bronze 

H. 21 ; L. 32 cm 

Inv. 13114 


Applique de lit en forme de 

petit satyre 

bronze 

H. 11,5 ; L. 7,5 cm 

Inv. 5295 

MANN 

Marchand ambulant 

bronze 

H. 26 ; L. 11 cm 

Inv.143761 

MANN 

Carafe avec anse 


H. 20 cm 

Inv. 16191 

MANN 

Coupe provenant du sud de la 

Gaule 


H. 11 ; diam. 25 cm 

Inv. 116995 

MANN 

Pot à masque 

anthropomorphe 

Terre cuite à parois fines 

H.11 ; diam. 9 cm 

Inv. 123 

MANN 

Récipient pour chauffer les 

liquides, dit "samovar" 

bronze 

H. 46 cm 

Inv. 73880 

MANN 

22

Situle à marqueterie de métal 

au nom de Cornelia Chelidon 

bronze 

H. 44 ; diam. 32 cm 

Inv. 68854 

MANN 

Cruche 

bronze 

H. 26 ; diam. 18 cm 

Inv. 1149 



Œnochoé avec anse décorée 

bronze 

H. 32,5 ; diam. 19,5 cm 

Inv. 4685 


Écumoir 

bronze 

H. 10,5 ; l. 34 cm 

Inv. 77602 

MANN 

Petite assiette 

verre 

H. 1,7 ; diam. 11,8 cm 

Inv. 12835 A 


Coupe panachée 

verre bleu 

H. 6,2 cm 

Inv. 13028 


Coupe 

verre vert 

H. 7,3 ; diam. 13,1 cm 

Inv. 11417 


Situle à anse avec réchaud 

bronze 

H. 24 cm 

Inv. 184985 

MANN 

Patère 

bronze 

H. 4,6 ; diam. 19,9 ; l. 31,3 

cm 

Inv. 11465 


Œnochoé avec anse en forme 

de satyre 

bronze 

H. 19 cm 

Inv. 335 

MANN 

Œnochoé 

verre bleu 

H. 11 ; diam. 9 cm 

Inv. 7520 


Petite assiette 

verre 

H. 2,2 ; diam. 12,5 cm 

Inv. 12835 C 


Verre 

verre soufflé en moule 

H.12 ; diam. 7 cm 

Inv. 129387 

MANN 

Fresque avec Vénus 

fresque 

H. 24 ; L. 30 cm 

Inv. 9181 

MANN 

Œnochoé à tête de femme 

bronze 

H. 14 cm 

Inv. E2541 

Fouilles de Herculanum 

Bassine 

bronze 

H. 11 ; diam. 34,4 cm 

Inv. 12097 


Vase à panier 

bronze 

H. 11,5 ; l. 35,5 cm 

Inv. 68775 

MANN 

Carafe 

verre 

H. 14,5 ; diam. 12,5 cm 

Inv. 12491 


Coupe côtelée 

verre 

H. 4,7 ; diam. 15,6 cm 

Inv. 10631 


Kalathos avec une anse 

verre bleu sombre 

MANN 

Fresque de l'amour 

malheureux 

H. 36 ; L. 43 cm 

Inv. 9378 

MANN 

23

Satyre et ménade 

fresque 

H. 46 ; L. 58 cm 

Inv. 27688 

MANN 

Phallus 

bronze 

l. 5 cm 

Inv. 27765 

MANN 

Lampe à bec à scène érotique 

Terre cuite 

diam. 11 cm 

Fiorelli 198 

MANN 

Fontaine 

mosaïque 

H. 240 ; L. 200 ; P. 177 cm 

Inv. 40689 a-g 


Dionysos à la peau de lépoard 

bronze 

H. 68 ; diam. base 26 cm 

Inv. E2292 



Enfant 

marbre 

H. 56 cm 

Inv. 53508 


Hermaphrodite 

marbre 

H. 24 ; L. 75 ; l. 38 cm 

Inv. 3021 


Satyre et ménade 

fresque 

H. 63,5 ; L. 57,5 cm 

Inv. 27691 

MANN 

Tintinnabulum avec nain 

ityphallique et lampe à bec 

bronze 

Personnage H. 16 cm ; lampe 

H. 4 ; l. 17,5 cm 

Inv. 1098 



Fresque avec scène de jardin 

fresque 

H. 115 ; L. 107 cm 

Inv. 8760 

MANN 

Table avec piètement au 

groupe sculpté, Silène et 

Dionysos enfant 

marbre 

H. 104 cm 

Inv. 1109 


Enfant au dauphin 

marbre 

H. 40,4 ; L. 35,3 ; P. 24,5 cm 

Inv. 41462 


Enfant 

marbre 

H. 56 cm 

Inv. 53509 


Pittaque de Mytilène 

Terre cuite 

H. 63 ; L. 29,5 ; l. 36,5 cm 

Inv. 20595 


Barque en forme de phallus 

avec Pygmées 

fresque 

H. 78 ; L. 209 cm 

Inv. 41654 


Phallus ailé avec quatre 

grelots 

bronze 

l. 16 cm 

s.n. 

MANN 

Fresque avec scène de jardin 

fresque 

H. 120 ; L. 75 cm 

Inv. 9719 

MANN 

Cratère à volutes, décoration 

de jardin 

marbre 

H. 86 cm 

Inv. 6779 

MANN 

Priape ityphallique 

marbre 

H. 99 cm 

Inv. 87265 


Pan et satyre 

marbre 

H. 55 cm 

6340 

MANN 

Oscillum 

marbre 

Diam. 29 cm 

Inv. 6641 

MANN 

24

Oscillum avec Achille et Troïlos 

Terre cuite 

Diam. 12,4 cm 

Inv. 11097 


Tortue 

marbre 

H. 12 cm 

Inv. 120043 

MANN 

Bassin sur pied à colonne 

cannelée 

marbre 

H. 95 ; L. 45 cm 

Inv. 126203 

MANN 

Aryballe 

bronze 

H. 9,5 cm 

Inv. 69970 

MANN 

Collier 

or et émeraude 

l. 39 cm 

Inv. 24607 

MANN 

Bague 


Diam. 2,5 cm 

Inv. 110908 

MANN 

Bracelet au serpent 

or 

Diam. 6,5 ; P. 0,3 cm 

Inv. 24897 

MANN 

Biche couchée 

marbre 

H. 24 ; L. 24,4 ; l. 41,9 cm 


Dauphin 

marbre 

H. 19 cm 

Inv. 120051 

MANN 

Baignoire 

bronze 

H. 44 ; L. max 63 ; l. 160 cm 

Inv. 73007 

MANN 

Miroir avec manche en forme 

de glaive d'Hercule 

bronze 

Diam. 15 ; l. 24 cm 

Inv. 111123 

MANN 

Collier 

or 

l. 250 cm 

Inv. 25260 

MANN 

Bague ornée d'une intaille 

or et corniole 

Diam. 2,5 cm 

Inv. 112865 

MANN 

Paire de boucles d'oreille 

or et pâte d'émeraude 

l. 3 cm 

Inv. 110914 

MANN 

Grenouille 

marbre 

H. 18 cm 

Inv. 120042 

MANN 

Bassin avec support en forme 

de vase tripode 

marbre 

H. 134 ; diam. 102 cm 

Inv. 6866 

MANN 

Strigile 

bronze et argent 

l. 22 cm 

Inv. 69994 

MANN 

Collier 


l. 32 cm 

Inv. 111116 

MANN 

Bracelet 

or 

l. 24 cm 

Inv. 110919 

MANN 

Bague au serpent 

or 

Diam. 2 cm 

Inv. 110913 

MANN 

Paire de boucles d'oreilles 

or 

l. 2,8 cm 

Inv. 111117 

MANN 

25

Épingle à cheveux 

os 

l. 12 cm 

Inv. 119428 

MANN 

Petite carafe 

verre 

H. 13,8 ; diam. 11 cm 

Inv. 6875 


Fiole à onguent 

verre 

H. 8,3 cm 

Inv. 115060 

MANN 

Petit flacon carré 

verre bleu clair 

H. 20 ; L. 9 cm 

Inv. 13011 

MANN 

Rhyton 

verre 

l. 21,2 cm 

Inv. 12493 


(Antiquarium de di Boscoreale) 


verre 

H. 8,3 cm 

Inv. 115081 

MANN 

Bouteille 

verre 

H. 22,5 ; diam. 9,5 cm 

Inv. 4722 



verre 

H. 9 cm 

Inv. 115148 

MANN 

Olpé avec une anse 

verre bleu clair 

H. 9 ; diam. 9 cm 

Inv. 23492 

MANN 

26

7. Visual documents available for the media 

Table (cartibulum), avec piètement en forme de griffon 

marbre 

H. 85 ; L. 141 ; l. 78 cm 

Inv. 40683 

Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e 

Pompei 

Fouilles de Pompei (Antiquarium Boscoreale) 

© Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e 

Pompei / Photo Pio Foglia 

Élégante pièce du mobilier, typique de l’atrium 

Coffre-fort 

bois, fer et bronze 

H. 101 ; L. 58 ; l. 92 cm 

Inv. 73021 


Pompei 

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli 


Pompei / Photo Archivio dell'Arte - Luciano Pedicini/fotografo 

Coffre-fort (arca) en bois, revêtu de bandeaux de fer à décors en 

bronze, élément typique de l’atrium. 

Braséro 

bronze 

H. 96 ; diam. 44 cm 

inv. 6798 


Pompei 




Les Romains ont créé toute une gamme d’appareils richement 

décorés, généralement en bronze, pour la production de l’eau chaude 

à utiliser durant les banquets du triclinium. Le cylindre évidé de celui-ci 

pose sur un trépied en fer. Les pieds sont en forme de pattes de lion, 

les poignées se terminent par de petites mains. Sur l’ouverture on peut 

voir un petit temple, avec une Gorgone dans le tympan. Deux 

dauphins et un Triton décorent le couvercle. 

Barque en forme de phallus avec Pygmées 

fresque 

H. 78 ; L. 209 cm 

inv. 41654 


Pompei 




Fragment de fresque à sujet nilotique. L’environnement et la faune du 

grand fleuve égyptien étaient parmi les décors favoris des triclinium en 

plein air. On attribuait au Pygmées, perpétuellement en lutte avec les 

crocodiles et les hippopotames, des coutumes érotiques très osées, 

représentées ici par la pirogue en forme de phallus. Sur les côtés, des 

canards et une tour, sujets récurrents, comme dans la grande 

mosaïque de Palestrina. 

27

Œnochoé à tête de femme 

bronze 

H. 14 cm 

Inv. 77839 


Pompei 

Fouilles de Herculanum 



Œnochoé en forme de tête de jeune femme. Ces vases en bronze, 

perpétuent une mode déjà en vogue dans les milieux grecs et 

étrusques. La polychromie des bandeaux de cuivre et des yeux en 

pâte de verre accentue le raffinement de l’objet. 

Statue d'éphèbe base de table 

bronze 

H. 137 cm 

Inv.13112 


Pompei 

Fouilles de Pompéi (Antiquarium de Boscoreale) 



Dans les salles de banquet élégantes, l’emploi de ces sculptures en 

bronze comme support de lampes ou de tables était fréquent. Ces 

« serviteurs muets » étaient le plus souvent des répliques romaines de 

sculptures grecques, agrémentées de rinceaux et autres éléments de 

support en fonction de leur nouvelle et plus prosaïque destination. Le 

nombre non négligeable de ce type d’objets retrouvé à Pompéi, 

témoigne de la richesse de la ville, ainsi que du désir des citoyens 

fortunés, d’être à la mode des classes romaines dominantes. 

Fontaine à cascade 

mosaïque 

H. 240 ; L. 200 ; P. 177 cm 

inv. 40689 a-g 


Pompei 




Scène de jardin en mosaïque. Provient du triclinium d’été d’une 

maison de l’Insula Occidentalis de Pompéi. Cette décoration raffinée 

entourait une fontaine destinée à agrémenter les banquets des 

propriétaires de la domus, petite villa érigée sur les anciens remparts 

de la ville, militairement inexploités. Le thème du jardin en mosaïque, 

tout comme celui – tout aussi raffiné, mais peint – des pièces voisines, 

répondait au jardin réel qui s’ouvrait en face. 

28

Fresques du triclinium de Carmiano 

fresque 

divers panneaux : H. 264 ; L. max. 478 cm 

inv. 63685 


Pompei 

Fouilles de Stabie 



La décoration de ce triclinium appartient au IV e style de Pompéi. Elle 

présente des schémas simples, sorte de grandes draperies tendues 

sur les murs, avec des trompe-l’œil réduits et des grands aplats de 

couleur unie. Au centre de la paroi principale, Poséidon et Amphitrite 

sur un char conduit par des Tritons, mélange d’un sujet hellénistique et 

d’un thème néo-attique. Sur les côtés, on peut voir des sujets religieux 

avec des figures féminines et dans la plinthe , un hippocampe et une 

mare aux canards, typique du répertoire égyptien alexandrin. 

Statue honoraire de femme drapée 

marbre 

H. 148 cm 

Inv. 6248 


Pompei 




Statue trouvée dans un monument public à Herculanum. Jeune femme 

de la bonne société, habillée à la grecque et coiffée à la mode des 

Jules-Claudes (premières décennies du Ier siècle ap. J.C.). Les statues 

honoraires étaient offertes par l’administration de la ville aux nobles 

bienfaiteurs pour leur générosité et, de ce fait, étaient très prisées. 

Villa à la mer, médaillon, 

Fragment de fresque, 

H. 25 ; L. 25 cm 

Inv. 9511 


Pompei 




Médaillon à la villa provenant de Stabie. Le rêve des habitants de 

l’empire était de posséder une villa à la mer (maritima) . La 

représentation de villas extraordinaires, à deux étages et façade en 

hémicycle, dans un paysage marin sur fond de montagnes peuplées 

de statues, était récurrente dans le IV e style de Pompéi. 

29

Cratère avec figures mythologiques de héros 

bronze repoussé 

H. 62,5 ; diam. 35,5 cm 

Inv. 45180 


Pompei 

Fouilles de Pompéi (Antiquarium Boscoreale) 



Cratère à calice en bronze sur piédouche, avec incrustations d’or et 

d’argent. Richement décoré dans sa partie inférieure par des oves, des 

godrons, des motifs végétaux en relief et des masques de silènes à 

l’accroche des anses. Sur sa partie centrale, on lit l’exploit héroïque de 

huit personnages masculins armés, dont deux sont assis. La référence 

mythologique est difficile à identifier : la chasse au sanglier de Calydon 

ou les Sept contre Thèbes. La datation est également controversée, 

située entre la seconde moitié du IIème siècle av. J.C. et les débuts du 

Ier siècle ap. J.C. 

Priape ityphallique 

marbre 

H. 99 cm 

Inv. 87265 


Pompei 




Priape, dieu protecteur des potagers et des jardins. Véritable rempart 

contre les forces du mal. Grâce à son phallus démesuré, il avait le 

pouvoir d’éloigner le mauvais œil. 

Fresque avec Dionysos trônant 

H. 81 ; L. 67 cm 

Inv. 9546 


Pompei 




Dionysos, en latin Bacchus, dieu du Vésuve selon Martial. Siégeant sur 

son trône et couronné de lierre, le cantharus dans sa main droite et le 

thyrsus dans sa main gauche. À ses pieds, la panthère, l’animal sacré 

et le tambourin joué par les Ménades. 

30

Hermaphrodite 

marbre 

H. 24 ; L. 38 ; l. 75 cm 

Inv. 3021 


Pompei 




Créature mythique, fils d’Hermès et d’ Aphrodite d’après la légende, il 

est à la fois homme et femme. Doté de clairvoyance, car capable de 

percer les mystères de la nature, il est souvent représenté endormi, mais 

aussi parfois au centre de peintures parodiques. 

Support de lampes à quatre bras en forme d'arbre 

bronze 

H. 56,5 cm 

Inv. 72226 


Pompei 




Support de lampes en forme d’arbre dénudé à quatre branches, 

auxquelles sont suspendues des lampes à bec. L’éclairage des salles de 

banquet était fondamental dans ce rite social qui se prolongeait souvent 

tard dans la nuit. Les candélabres et les lampes à bec étaient parfois très 

élaborés pour s’adapter à l’élégance du mobilier. 

Récipient pour chauffer les liquides, dit "samovar" 

bronze 

H. 46 cm 

Inv. 73880 


Pompei 




Important objet en bronze du triclinium, comportant une double paroi qui 

permettait la conservation des boissons aussi bien à haute qu'à basse 

température. Elégamment décoré, le corps du samovar présente des 

cotes finement travaillées et s’appuie sur quatre pieds en forme de 

pattes de lion. Ses anses sont d’inspiration grecque. 

Bassin avec support en forme de vase tripode 

marbre 

H. 134 ; diam. 102 cm 

Inv. 6866 


Pompei 




Bassin en marbre avec trois pieds en forme de sphinx, inspiré des 

louteria grecques en bronze . La base, qui rappelle celle des tripodes, 

élégamment décorée d’éléments végétaux, répond au goût classique 

typique des ateliers néo-attiques. 

31

Baignoire 

bronze 

H. 44 ; L. max 63 ; l. 160 cm 

Inv. 73007 


Pompei 




La baignoire était utilisée par ceux qui ne voulaient ou ne pouvaient pas 

prendre de bains de vapeur dans les thermes domestiques. Plus souvent 

on se servait de vasques de maçonnerie plaquées en marbre et dôtées de 

robinets. La baignoire en bronze était remplie par les esclaves à la 

température souhaitée. C’est une rareté, nous n‘en connaissons qu’un seul 

autre exemplaire, retrouvé à Herculanum. De grande élégance dans sa 

forme et dans sa décoration, comme ses poignées en forme d’anneaux 

cannelés. 

Cratère à volutes, décoration de jardin 

marbre 

H. 86 cm 

Inv. 6779 


Pompei 




Ce cratère a les parois décorées de personnages dionysiaques en relief. 

Ce type de vase est souvent percé dans son fond pour servir de bassin de 

fontaine. 

Sculpté en marbre à volutes, il rappelait l'ancien vase grec de banquet 

dans lequel on mélangeait l'eau et le vin. Très prisé dans les jardins, il était 

produit en série par les ateliers de marbre néo-attiques. Il est souvent 

représenté dans les décorations sur le thème du jardin. 

Moulage de chien, reproduction 

plâtre 

H. 60 ; L. 60 ; l. 60 cm 


Pompei 




Moulage d’un chien enchainé cherchant désespérément à se libérer 

pendant son agonie lors de l’éruption volcanique. 

32

8. Useful information 

MUSÉE MAILLOL - FONDATION DINA VIERNY 

59-61, rue de Grenelle 

3375007 Paris 

Tél : 01 42 22 59 58 

Fax : 01 42 84 14 44 

Métro : Rue du Bac 

Bus : n° 63, 68, 69, 83, 84 

www.museemaillol.com 

Opening hours 

The exhibition is open EVERY DAY from 10h30 à 19h, including bank holidays (except the 

25th of december and the 1st of January) 

Late opening on Fridays until 21h30 

Entrance price 

Rate : 11 euros 

Reduced rate : 9 euros 

Free for the under 11 years old 

Restaurant 

Italian restaurant « La Cortigiana » 

Open every day from 10h30 to 17h 

Catalogue 

Co edition Gallimard - Musée Maillol, 224 pages, 220 illustrations, around 39 € 

Album of the exhibition Gallimard, 48 pages, 55 illustrations, 9 € 

Special issue Le Figaro, 7,90 € 

Special issue Connaissance des Arts, 9 € 

COMMUNICATION CONTACTS 

Agence Observatoire 

2 rue mouton duvernet - 75014 Paris 

Céline Echinard 

+33 (0)1 43 54 87 71 

celine@observatoire.fr 

www.observatoire.fr 


Claude Unger 

+33 (0)6 14 71 27 02 

cunger@museemaillol.com 

Elisabeth Apprédérisse 

+33 (0)1 42 22 57 25 

eapprederisse@museemaillol.com 

33

Contents - Musée Maillol

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?