Ave Civitas,
I am searching for information on what the interior walls of the homes and houses of Romans would have looked like.
I see lots of pictures of floors, I have a book on Roman Furniture, but nothing on how they decorated the insides of their houses.
I have seen and read of some walls with murals, but what about the homes of people other than the senatorial class?
Did they prefer light pastel colors inside, whitewash, dark mahogany paneling?
Any thoughts, any resources you would recommend for me to get?
As always, Thanks for your help
Tom
Books on Roman art tend to be full of pictures of Roman buildings!!
However there are specialist books on Roman painting. Try anything by Roger Ling. Books on Pompeii usually contain pictures of wall paintings, the majority being from private houses and not always of the very wealthy
Roman wall decoration was certainly not plain and even military buildings had the usual explosion of colour! You would need archaeological reports to get details of those but Roger Ling's book on Wall painting in Roman Britain includes a few fragments from military sites.
Graham.
Xanten produced a monograph on the Wall painting remains found there:
Xantener Berichte band 11
From what I can see the evidence would suggest there is not a whole lot of difference in the kind of decoration you might find in Pompeii and Xanten except that in Pompeii theres a lot more surviving and generally its more complete....
A reconstructed room at Xanten
[attachment=12116]WalldecorXantensmall1.jpg[/attachment]
What period are you looking for? I have a book about Late Roman interior decorating.
Thank you all for your help. I knew this was the place to ask.
Robert, I am writing about the last decade of the 4th and the first of the 5th centuries AD.
Can you provide the name and author of that book?
Thank you.
It's a great book. Actually there were big decorative parallels between late Roman clothing and interior decorating! If you have old tunics you could easily make them into cushions. Curtains and drapery also have very similar motives.
A. De Moor and C. Fluck eds. (2009) Clothing the House. Furnishing textiles of the 1st millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries (Proceedings of the 5th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley’. Antwerp, 6-7 October 2007. Tielt 2009.
[attachment=12125]Clothing-the-House-Fluck-Cacila-9789020985900.jpg[/attachment]
Tom, what kind of book are you writing?
Robert,
Thanks for asking. It is not a text, it is a novel about Alaric starting with him as a bandit in the Rhodopes. The story is in the beta read phase and should be going out to agents next month (I hope).
Thanks for the title. I will see if I can get it.
Tom
South Shields (Arbeia Fort) put a lot of research into the amazing colours and patterns put into their Headquarters building (Severan Period). If that's not too early and you would like to see the photos I took, PM me with your email address
I've been in two houses in Pompeii, and they really liked their red. Also a combination of red and black, just the color-scheme to sicken a modern interior decorator. :whistle:
Ave Civitas,
Thank you all for your help. Great book recommendations. Got two ordered.
Tom
It's what we're here for. :-)