A mosaic of an intimate scene that was stolen from Italy during World War II has been repatriated to Pompeii. The mosaic on a slab of travertine was gifted to a German citizen, now deceased, by a captain of the Wehrmacht who had helped himself to it in 1944 during the German occupation of Italy. The officer was in charge of military supplies in Italy during World War II.
There are no more details about its origins on the record. The small amount of information we have comes from the heirs of the deceased who realized it had to have been illegally removed from Italy and voluntarily contacted authorities to return the mosaic.
Dating to between the middle of the 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D., the mosaic depicts a semi-nude woman with her back to the viewer reaching out to a semi-nude man reclining on a couch. This was a domestic scene rather than the erotic encounter from mythology that were the preferred motifs of the earlier Hellenistic era (4th-1st century B.C.). It is an important example of the transition from heroic figural iconography to domestic love as an artistic motif.
The mosaic is executed in the opus vermiculatum technique, figural mosaics made of small tesserae in undulating lines (vermiculatum means worm-like). This type of mosaic work was primarily used for emblemata, the most finely crafted, detailed panels at the center surrounded by floral and geometric motifs created with larger tesserae in the opus tessellatum technique.
Small emblemata with domestic scenes like this typically decorated the center of cubiculae, the bedrooms of Roman homes. There are a few comparable pieces — meticulous opus vermiculatum mosaics on travertine slabs — in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, several of which are known to have come from the luxury villas of Stabiae. While its original home cannot be pinpointed with precision, experts from the Office for the Protection of Archaeological Heritage of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii were able to determine that it came from one of the towns under the shadow of Vesuvius.
The panel has been put on temporary display at the Antiquarium of Pompeii where it can be on view to the public pending further analysis and conservation.
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