Mosaic emblem depicting marine fauna (9997)

Mosaic emblem depicting marine fauna (9997)

The mosaic, in First Style, is framed by a mixture of plants, kraters, drinking cups, flying cupids, birds and small animals. It depicts several species of edible fish found in the Mediterranean, while in the lower right corner and in the centre of the left-hand side, there is a coastal landscape over which a kingfisher hovers ready to dive. Around the central scene, which features a fight between an octopus and a lobster, numerous types of fish are arranged uniformly over the entire surface, including a prawn, a bass, a murex shell, a moray eel, a scorpion fish, a gilthead and a ray. The theme, known from other copies (Aquileia, Palestrina, Rome, Palermo and Susa), of which one, from House VIII, 2, 16 in Pompeii housed in the Archaeological Museum of Naples, derives from a late Hellenistic model, probably an Alexandrian painting from the first half of the second century BC. The depiction of marine fauna, which was already widely used on Attic and especially Italiot red figure “fish-plates”, developed considerably during the Hellenistic period both from a naturalistic perspective and in terms of a literary-gastronomic trend popular among the Hellenistic courts. This mosaic also reflects the diffusion of Hellenistic culture in Samnite Pompeii, probably influenced indirectly by the Roman holiday villas which dotted the entire Bay of Naples. Originally positioned in the triclinium of the famous House of the Faun, the mosaic was made by a skilled workshop capable of using thousands of small polychrome mosaic tessarae to the best possible effect to obtain an exceptionally harmonious and balanced composition. It reflected the desire to portray the delicacies of the sea which, together with the delicacies from dry land exemplified by the objects in the frame, were customarily offered to his guests the master of the domus.