Abstract:

The growing popularity of calcite alabaster led to the exploitation of alabaster sources around the Mediterranean from the early imperial period: onyx and banded types from Egypt, fiorito from Asia Minor (Turkey), pecorella from North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and other rare Italian (Latium and Tuscany) varieties. Moreover, the increasing favour met by alabaster was mirrored by its constant reproduction in First-, Second- and Fourth-Style Roman paintings. The high accuracy in the reproduction of the variegated patterning of alabaster, particularly in the Second- and Fourth-Style, reached unprecedented levels. Several houses at Pompeii and Roman villas in the Vesuvian area, such as the Villa of Mysteries (Pompeii), Villa A (Oplontis) and the Villa Arianna (Stabiae), present remarkable examples of painted alabaster. Despite a certain level of “artistic” interpretation, it is possible to recognise the represented varieties as fairly faithful imitations of the most popular Egyptian and non-Egyptian types. For example, Egyptian onyx (cotognino and banded) is widely reproduced in the Second-Style frescoes (60-40 BC) at Villa A (Room 5, 11) and the Villa Arianna (Room 3), while some of those from the Villa of the Mysteries (60 BC) can be arguably identified as non-Egyptian fiorito alabaster. Preliminary results of a survey of painted alabaster carried out by the present authors at Pompeii show that 23 of the 59 houses (including the Villa of the Mysteries), which retain or are known to have had painted imitation marble, contained painted alabaster. At Herculaneum, only one house, the House of the Alcove, features painted imitation of alabaster (in all probability fiorito). We identified the most common varieties of painted alabaster as onyx alabaster (52% of the total) and alabastro fiorito (28%), while 20% remained unidentified due to the poor conservation of the painted surface or because the variety was not clear, especially in First-Style paintings (e.g. House VI.16.26).