page_title: House of the Prince of Naples
section_title: Triclinium (k)
hierarchical_section_title: House of the Prince of Naples / Decoration and finds / Triclinium (k)
caption_attribution_description: English: he decoration consists of white panels separated by architectural fancies above a lower decorative red frieze. The central panels of the three main walls contained a large mythological scene. 2nd century BCE - 1st century CE Source: sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/pompeii/regio-vi/reg-v...
context_page_description: The House of the Prince of Naples is a Roman townhouse located in Region VI, Insula XV, entrances 7 and 8 in the archaeological site of Pompeii near Naples, Italy. The structure is so named because the Prince and Princess of Naples Joseph Bonapartes grandson Louis Joseph and his wife Laura, attended a ceremonial excavation of selected rooms there on March 22, 1898. The house is painted throughout in the Pompeian Fourth Style and is valued by scholars because its decoration is all of a single style and single period, unlike many surviving Roman structures that are found to be a hodgepodge of styles from different periods.
context_section_description: he floor pavement in this space is fine red-colored cocciopesto and in the center of the room is an opus sectile geometric mosaic composed of squares and triangles in different colored marbles.  A stucco cornice has survived completely on the east wall but only in remnants on the north wall and is fragmented in the lunette of the barrel vault. A variety of filigree borders are used to define the three panels of the Fourth Style main zone wall paintings above a red-violet socle embellished with plants, birds and dolphins. Faux architectural structures draped in leaf garlands and animated with goats, birds and griffins, twisted candelabras, and small shrines enclosing plinths supporting Medusa heads, frontal sphinxes or Dionysian panthers with kantharos populate the upper zone.
  On the east wall in the main zone, two aedicula containing a twisted candelabra capped with an ornate entablature topped with tragic masks flank a framed panel painting of either Paris and Helen or Adonis and Aphrodite with erotes standing between them.
  The original Italian excavators, August Mau and Antonio Sogliano, identified the couple as Paris and Helen.  German archaeologist Volker Michael Strocka, analyzing the painting in his 1984 survey of the structure disagreed, pointing out that Paris was not wearing an oriental costume or is accompanied by any other attributes associated with Paris and there is no depiction in which Paris and Helen face each other in spite of numerous other examples of the couple elsewhere in Pompeii. Instead, Strocka said the young man's chlamys represents a hero's attire and points to the remnants of a spear shaft in the painting. He also points out that the woman as described by Sogliano as wearing a gold diadem, earrings, necklace, armillae and the usual golden cord that crosses her chest as in figures of Venus, closely resembles numerous descriptions of Aphrodite-Venus.  He then concludes that since the young man lacks the usual weapons that normally accompany a depiction of Ares, the figure must be Adonis if the woman is Aphrodite. Strocka also mentions two post-Pompeian representations which, like this painting, depict Adonis on the left wearing a cloak and equipped with only a spear and Aphrodite on the right.
  In the upper zone of the east wall were three rectangular pinakes that have been completely destroyed although the original excavator Mau described the center one that was still intact at that time.  He describes a night landscape with a partially covered bridge  over a river with two barks with oarsmen. Two other men on the bridge appear to be helping the barks to land.
  On the north wall of the triclinium, two fanciful aedicula with peacocks flank a framed panel painting of Perseus and Andromeda.  Perseus, on the left, is heroically nude and grips the head of Medusa above the couple's heads so it reflects in a pool of water so Andromeda can look upon it safely.
  Friedrich Matz traces this depiction back to a Hellenistic painting from around the middle of the 2nd century BCE although in this painting he points out that Andromeda is turned outwards as an expressionless mantle figure thereby imitating a pyramid group of  4th century BCE  Classicism.  Paintings of the couple found elsewhere in Pompeii, including in the oecus of Casa dei Capitelli Colorati (VII, 4, 51-31) and the Casa della Saffo, (Pompeii VI) reflect a Roman version wth Perseus looking at Andromeda, not at the mirror image of Medusa.
  The south and west walls were originally similarly decorated like the east wall. A third panel painting on the south wall was totally destroyed, probably by earthquake activity as early as 62 CE. Strocka concludes it was probably another heroic pair of lovers representing opposite or complementary aspects of love.
  
  Finds in this largest of the reception rooms included a bronze basin with two handles depicting twisted dolphins with silver ornaments, a bronze basket with two movable handles terminated in swan heads, a bronze vase with a palmette-shaped handle, a large-bellied bronze vase with a swan head and human t
caption: North wall of the oecus richly decorated in the Fourth Style
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