Facing the Colours of Roman Portraiture by Amalie Skovmøller

Author:Amalie Skovmøller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2020-12-16T14:08:32.190000+00:00

Touch

We begin by setting the physical stage for the encounter by returning to the physical context of the Room of Fundilia. Excavations of the room have made it possible to envisage the room as it may originally have looked with the painted sculptures on display (figs. 142).14 The room measured 6 × 5.60 m, with two fluted columns, originally stuccoed and painted red (measuring 70 cm in diameter), framing the entrance. The walls of the small room were painted a saturated red hue. In addition, recent excavations of the room have uncovered painted panel paintings, which may have served to frame the sculptures.15 The room was vaulted with a high ceiling (dimensions unknown), and its floor was almost completely covered with black and white mosaic tiling (dating to the Late Republican period). At the back of the room were three untiled areas intended for statue bases (fig. 35 above).16 Two of the vacant spaces framed the statues of Fundilia and Fundilius, but it remains unknown what inhabited the third, middle space.17 Excavation reports from the later nineteenth century note sculptural finds that have since disappeared (an incised shaft for Staia Quinta and a third dedication for Fundilia18). A third statue may therefore have originally existed; however, its whereabouts are currently unknown. The sculptural dedications in the rooms beneath the portico were already moved around in Roman times, and it is therefore not certain that the third space in fact hosted a statue at the time of excavation (see the discussion in chapter 1).

In the colour visualization of the room, the statues and herm portraits are placed according to the 1887 plan (fig. 36).19 However, the herm portrait of Licinia Chrysarion and the busts of the young woman and the man wearing a wreath were not found with similar shafts,20 and have therefore not been included in any prior plans, despite the room’s being big enough to host them as well. In this colour visualization, the herm portrait of Licinia is placed next to the herm of Fundilia, while the portrait bust of the man wearing a wreath - given a shaft matching the remaining herm portraits - is placed by the opposite wall beside the portrait of Quintus Hostius Capito (fig. 142).

On entering the room, the ancient viewer was confronted with the painted portrait sculptures. Excavations have revealed no additional finds within the room, suggesting that the portrait sculptures were originally intended as the “main attraction”. The visitor would enter, circle the room and exit back into the portico through the main entrance. The experience of the room and its polychrome sculptures was therefore initially an optical one. Placed on shafts and plinths against the walls, the portrait sculptures almost greeted the visitor standing by the entrance.

The sculptures were textured and painted in vivid colours with details that may have drawn in the viewer to observe them up close. The busts were placed into shafts, which brought them to the viewer’s eye level. The statues were most likely placed on bases, bringing them above the viewer’s eye level.

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