History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 2 (of 2) by Walters et al.

Terracotta =mural decoration= was largely employed by the Romans for the interior and exterior of their buildings, in the form of slabs, ornamented with reliefs, which were placed round the impluvium or on the walls. Sometimes they seem to have formed a sort of hanging “curtain” round the lower edge of the cornice, as the open-work patterns along the edges seem to imply, a method of decoration which we have already met with at Civita Lavinia (Vol. I. p. 101), where also the hanging slabs are bordered with patterns in outline or open-work. But, as also at Civita Lavinia, these slabs seem to have been frequently used as _antepagmenta_,[2562] being pierced with holes, which imply that they were nailed against the walls. In the Casa dei Cecilii at Tusculum there is evidence that they were used as wall-friezes,[2563] and those found at Pompeii (where they are very rare) also have holes for fastening to walls. It may be to the first-named variety that Festus refers when he speaks of _antefixa_ of fictile work which are affixed to the walls underneath the gutters.[2564] There is also a reference to them in Cicero, who, in writing to Atticus, says, “I entrust to you the bas-reliefs (_typos_) which I shall insert in the cornice of my little atrium.”[2565] The slabs are usually about 18 inches long by 9 or more high, and 1 to 2 inches thick; they have nearly all been found at Rome, but specimens are also known from Civita Lavinia, Cervetri, Nemi, Pompeii, and Atri in Picenum.[2566] The British Museum possesses a very fine series, numbering, with fragments, one hundred and sixty, nearly all of which were collected by Mr. Charles Towneley at Rome[2567]; and there is an equally fine collection in the Louvre, which came from Signor Campana, who devoted a large work to the illustration of them.[2568] Other good examples, some of which were found in the Baths of Caracalla, are in the various collections at Rome.[2569] The reliefs were evidently cast in moulds, as many subjects are repeated over and over again, or at least with only slight differences; moreover, the relief is low, with sharp and definite outlines, such as a mould would produce. Among the British Museum examples a group of Eros, a Satyr, and a Maenad is repeated in three cases (D 520-522), with no variations except in the colouring; another of Dionysos and Satyr three times (D 528-530), with only one small variation. It is evident that in the latter, as in some other cases, the relief had been retouched before baking. Reliefs entirely modelled are of much rarer occurrence, but exhibit considerable artistic feeling and freedom, as in an instance in the British Museum (D 651), which represents the sleeping Endymion; the hair is so fine and deeply cut that it could not possibly have been produced from a mould. The moulds may have been made of various materials—wood, stone, metal, or gypsum, as well as terracotta. Circular holes are left in the slabs for the plugs—usually of lead—by which they were attached to the woodwork or masonry. The clay varies in quality and appearance, being often coarser than that of Greek reliefs, and mixed with coarse sand in order to make it stronger and more durable; in tone it varies from a pale buff to dark reddish-brown. Traces of colouring are often found on the slabs,[2570] and the background in some cases (as B.M. D 577, 623) was coloured a bright blue; the figures, or more often details such as hair, etc., were usually painted red, yellow, purple, or white. These colours are not fired, as in the earlier terracotta reliefs, but painted in _tempera_, and their use is entirely conventional. The slabs are ornamented above and below with bands or cornices in the form of egg-and-tongue mouldings, or a system of palmettes and intersecting arches; these are sometimes in low relief on a band, sometimes partly in outline or open-work. ------------------------------------------------------ PLATE LXI [Illustration: ROMAN MURAL RELIEFS.