~ PAINTING, 75 
sea-ports, &c., animated with figures of persons engaged in all sorts of 
pursuits and often in very comical situations. In ancient buildings there 
are still many remains of this period of art, the date of whose execution 
extends down to the time of the Antonines. To these belong e.g. the 
paintings from the pyramid of Cestius, and the large and constantly increas- 
ing collection of wall-paintings from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabie, 
as well as those in the tomb of the Nasones. In‘all of these the art exhibits, 
even in its degenerate state, an inexhaustible invention and productiveness : 
everything too is depicted with lively colors and simple illumination, and 
is clearly and agreeably arranged with much taste for harmony of color 
and a general architectural effect. We here furnish a few specimens of the 
painting of this period. The oldest is a painting found in one of the 
subterranean chambers in the garden of the Villa Pamfili in Rome (pl. 13, 
jig. 8); it is a fresco representing a satyric or comic scene, probably the 
flight of a Bacchante from a drunken Faun. The nuptial celebration, 
jig. T, is of great antiquarian value, and is one of the finest fresco paintings 
that have come down to us from antiquity; it was found under Pope 
Clement III. not far from the Arch of Gallienus, near Santa Maria Maggiore 
and the Baths of Titus, and has been called, after the villa Aldobrandini, 
where it was afterwards preserved, “the Aldrobrandini Wedding.” This 
fresco is now in the Museum of the Vatican. Winckelmann explains it to 
be the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, at which the goddesses of the Seasons 
or three Muses are singing and playing the epithalamium. The bride 
seated on the torus is exhorted by Aphrodite or Peitho to receive the bride- 
groom who is waiting on the threshold. A charis stands ready to anoint 
her. In the back part of the chamber the bride’s bath is preparing. Zoega 
and Heinrich Meyer perceive in the figures portrayed only ordinary 
mortals, and consider, no doubt correctly, that the whole is simply a repre- 
sentation of the Greek wedding ceremonials. The figures are rather more 
than two palms high, and are painted very lightly and thinly but with a 
fine feeling for harmony and the force of colors. 
Of the innumerable paintings with which archeology has been enriched 
by the excavations in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabis, we will mention 
only a few. To these belong, e.g. Achilles and Briseis, from Pompeii. 
We here behold the Peleide Achilleus seated on a throne against which 
leans the famous shield, and causing the weeping Briseis to be delivered by 
his friend Patroclus to the herald, near whom Mercury appears. It is 
interesting to compare this design (pl. 12, fig. 11) with the manner in which 
Thorwaldsen has treated the same scene in his relief (pl. 9, jig. 6). It 
having been declared by an oracle that Troy could not be taken without 
Achilles, but that if he went there he would meet with an early death, his 
mother Thetis disguised him in female garments and placed him at the 
court of Lycomedes king of Scyros. A painting from Pompeii represents 
his discovery there by Ulysses (pl. 12, jig. 12). The latter came to the 
court of the king disguised as a merchant, and proffered his wares, among 
which were some arms. As the women were inspecting the goods, he 
caused a trumpet to be suddenly sounded ; the disguised Achilles unthink- 
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