Villa of Agrippa Postumus

Painting of Perseus and Andromeda from the eastern wall of the Mythological Room

Agrippa Postumus, a grandson of the Emperor Augustus, had a villa on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, which was buried in the eruption of 79 AD. The villa lies within the current comune of Boscotrecase, Campania, Italy. The villa is best known for its ancient Roman works of art, especially its frescoes.[1] Because the ash from Mount Vesuvius's eruption preserved the frescoes, they were able to be excavated between 1903 and 1905.[2] The frescoes come from various cubicula, or bedrooms that served as places of sociability and business, along the villa's southern hallway that overlooks the bay of Naples.[3]

The frescoes that were excavated are now shared between the Metropolitan Museum of Art[4] and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. A fragment from the villa was discovered in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums in 2007. It was acquired in 1921 from Albert Gallatin.[5]

  1. ^ "The Augustan Villa at Boscotrecase". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  2. ^ Milleker, Elizabeth Johnston. (2000). The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 45. ISBN 0870999613. OCLC 884668332.
  3. ^ Leach, Eleanor Winsor. (2004). The Social Life of Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples. Cambridge University Press. p. 144. ISBN 1107690463. OCLC 939787728.
  4. ^ Wall painting: Perseus and Andromeda in landscape, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase The Met. Retrieved 3 December 2022
  5. ^ Molacek, Elizabeth M.; Smith, Kate; Eremin, Katherine; Cooper, Lucy J.; Rayner, Georgina (2020-07-03). "Re-Discovering a Roman Wall Painting at Harvard: New Research on a Fragment from the Villa at Boscotrecase". Studies in Conservation. 65 (5): 298–300. doi:10.1080/00393630.2020.1733789. ISSN 0039-3630. S2CID 216358213.