The large fresco in the garden of the Casa dei Ceii returns to shine with its intense colours following a major restoration of the decorative apparatus.
Like a film faded by time and restored, the large painting that decorates the back wall of the garden of this house comes back to life in all its splendor and vividness, with the hunting scene with wild animals, together with the scenes of Egyptian landscapes populated by Pygmies and animals of the Nile Delta depicted on the side walls.
These were often recurring subjects in the decoration of the perimeter walls of Pompeian gardens, in order to illusionistically enlarge the dimensions of these spaces and evoke an idyllic and suggestive atmosphere within them. In this case, in all probability, the theme of the paintings also testified to a specific link and interest that the owner of the domus had for the Egyptian world and for the cult of Isis, particularly widespread in Pompeii in the last years of the city's life.
Over the years, due to the lack of adequate maintenance and the use of unsuitable restoration practices, there has been a progressive deterioration of the paintings and damage to the frescoes, especially in the lower parts where humidity has the greatest impact. Thanks to a very complex intervention, it was possible to clean the pictorial film also through the use of laser, which allowed us to clean important portions of the painting, especially in the part relating to the botanical decoration of the fresco. The abraded parts of the painting were recovered through a specific pictorial retouching. The entire room was closed to avoid, in the future, rainwater infiltration and to adequately preserve the area. The intervention was carried out with ordinary funds from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
The House of the Ceii, excavated between 1913 and 1914, represents one of the rare examples of an ancient dwelling from the late Samnite period (XNUMXnd century BC). Ownership of the domus was attributed to the magistrate Lucius Ceius Secundus, on the basis of an electoral inscription painted on the external façade of the house. The façade of the domus, with its white stucco panelling and the high portal crowned by cubic capitals, is an example of the severe appearance that a medium-level house from the late Samnite period (XNUMXnd century BC) must have had. At the centre of the peculiar tetrastyle atrium is the impluvium basin, made with fragments of amphorae placed edgewise, according to a technique widespread in Greece but which Pompeii finds only one other comparison with in the House of the Ancient Hunt.
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In recent years, as part of the Great Pompeii Project, the domus had been the subject of redevelopment, rainwater management and roof maintenance works, which had become necessary due to the progressive loss of functionality of the roofs, which over the years was exposing the rooms below, characterised by decorated plaster and highly valuable floors, to a serious risk of degradation.
In the house, part of the original layout of the residence had been reproduced, with the relocation of the marble table and the wellhead in the atrium, where the cast of a wardrobe and the cast of the house's entrance door are also visible. While in the kitchen, a small domestic millstone is visible.
Article published on 24 February 2021 - 16:04
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