Pompeian House (Crystal Palace)
Pompeian House (Crystal Palace)
I've never read the handbook before... anyone know which buildings were used as a blueprint for the re-creation at Crystal Palace?
My favourite, for some reason, is called The House Of The Small Fountain, but then I can't seem to exactly match any features from any buildings!?
Download video clip...
Perhaps we need the Crystal Palace Museum's colour print of the Pompeian House to make ultimate comparison?
Download video clip...
Perhaps we need the Crystal Palace Museum's colour print of the Pompeian House to make ultimate comparison?
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tulse hill terry
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As you can see from these few pages from the Pompeian Handbook, the Court was a mixture/synthesis of several villas.
I can post more if anyone is interested, but I don't have the time to transcribe them all just yet.
What are these colour prints from the Museum Falkor, are they Talbot prints or Day portfolio prints? Photographic or engravings?
"house consists in the greater diffusion of light, and the increased scale of the apartment beter suited to a palace in the capital of the Empire. For the purpose of fully displaying the beauties of the mural decorations, much more light has been admitted into this apartment than is usually found in the same division of the Pompeian houses. To this end, the central aperture, which ought to have been of the same size as the reservoir below, has been considerably widened. Windows also have been introduced in order to give the spectator a better view of the decoration of the side chambers. At a glance the eye recognises the various parts of the building previously described. In the centre below is the square basin to collect the water, called the impluvium, aperture above would be the compluvium. At the further end, facing the entrance, a graceful female figure is seen playing the lyre - these paintings will be described hereafter. In many houses this extremity is painted sky blue, with shrubs and trees to imitate a distant garden - this was the case in the peristyle of the Tragic Poet's House, also in the Houses of the Quaestor and Acteaon. The dark square central part forming as it were a frame to our view of the perisyle, is the tablinum, the side-passages are the fauces, and the smaller apertures round the sides of the Atrium will be recognised as conducting to the cubicula. Each of these apartments we propose to examine minutely, after having taken a general view of the Atrium. This important space in a Roman house was also called the Cavum AEdium, or Cavaedium, as Pliny writes it. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .The Atrium as views from the door, is oblong, in a poition reversed from that in which it is generally to be found in Pompeian houses: although an authority for this arragement exists in the House of Queen Caroline. The impluvium in the centre is of marble, and the exquisite small marble statue of a faun, serving at the same time as a fountain, is copied from the house called after the grand Duke of Tuscany. The floor is an excellent imitation of ancient mosaic work, executed by Messrs. Minton; the various patterns are taken from different Pompeian houses. Many of the floors at Pompeii exhibit some of the finest examples of mosaic work in which elaborate paintings with every varieyty of colour have been produced. they are composes solely of small pieces of coloured stone or glass fitted closely together and highly polished. . . . . .
. . . . . The prevailing colour of the atrium is white. All around the doors and the windows of the Cubicula the wall is painted bright blue with red dado. The pilasters are white with the lower part yellow; thier capitals white heightened by blue and red; they are frm the House of the Centaur. In the square compartments, on a white ground, between the capitals of pilasters, are elegant groups of female figures on marine animals, and Cupids in chariots; some of the small enriched mouldings are from the cornice of the tomb of Claventius Quictus, and the atrium frieze above tablinum is copied from a side apartment in the Tragic Poet's House. It is composed of white figures of combatants in armour on foot and in chariots; shields and dead bodies lie prostrate. The ground of this frieze is purple, but the ground of the orginal is described as white, and the figures are said to be clothed in blue, green, and purple draperies. the females are Amazons, distinguished by the pelta or lunated shield. (see Statue No. 194 of the Greek Court.) the rest of the fireze is white, with patterns of bright-coloured lines in simple forms. Over each pilaster the frieze is broken by double figures of Victory, yellow and gold, which serve to support the beams which project to the edge of the compluvium. They were modelled by Mr. Raffaelle Monti, under the superintendence of Signor abbate, from a drawing by Mr. Mathew Digby Wyatt.
The compluvium is bordered with red standing tiles called antifixa, and the arrangement of Mazois in his restoration of the House of Diomed has been followed. The anitxa may be seen also on the model of the Parthenon in the bas-relief galery adjoining the Greek Court. The angle tiles, with a spout to discharge the rain water, merit attention. The sloping roof of the atrium, composed of light beams with panelling between them, has been chiefly restored from existing paintings; but few traces of woodwork remain in any part of these ancient cities without having been seriously disturbed; the atrium ceilings being of wood, were consequently destroyed; pictorial records are therefore our only authorites. Fortunately for us, the ancients seem to have delighted in depicting themselves and their ways of living, so that it is not improbable that the architectural specimens that we see on their walls are only the transcripts of the slender construtions which were in fact confined to the upper stories.
We must now go into the detail of the house and pass into each room as consecutively numbered in the plan, beginning in this instance on the left hand of the principal entance, keeping the wall of Atrium always to the left. . . . . . . . . .
I can post more if anyone is interested, but I don't have the time to transcribe them all just yet.
What are these colour prints from the Museum Falkor, are they Talbot prints or Day portfolio prints? Photographic or engravings?
"house consists in the greater diffusion of light, and the increased scale of the apartment beter suited to a palace in the capital of the Empire. For the purpose of fully displaying the beauties of the mural decorations, much more light has been admitted into this apartment than is usually found in the same division of the Pompeian houses. To this end, the central aperture, which ought to have been of the same size as the reservoir below, has been considerably widened. Windows also have been introduced in order to give the spectator a better view of the decoration of the side chambers. At a glance the eye recognises the various parts of the building previously described. In the centre below is the square basin to collect the water, called the impluvium, aperture above would be the compluvium. At the further end, facing the entrance, a graceful female figure is seen playing the lyre - these paintings will be described hereafter. In many houses this extremity is painted sky blue, with shrubs and trees to imitate a distant garden - this was the case in the peristyle of the Tragic Poet's House, also in the Houses of the Quaestor and Acteaon. The dark square central part forming as it were a frame to our view of the perisyle, is the tablinum, the side-passages are the fauces, and the smaller apertures round the sides of the Atrium will be recognised as conducting to the cubicula. Each of these apartments we propose to examine minutely, after having taken a general view of the Atrium. This important space in a Roman house was also called the Cavum AEdium, or Cavaedium, as Pliny writes it. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .The Atrium as views from the door, is oblong, in a poition reversed from that in which it is generally to be found in Pompeian houses: although an authority for this arragement exists in the House of Queen Caroline. The impluvium in the centre is of marble, and the exquisite small marble statue of a faun, serving at the same time as a fountain, is copied from the house called after the grand Duke of Tuscany. The floor is an excellent imitation of ancient mosaic work, executed by Messrs. Minton; the various patterns are taken from different Pompeian houses. Many of the floors at Pompeii exhibit some of the finest examples of mosaic work in which elaborate paintings with every varieyty of colour have been produced. they are composes solely of small pieces of coloured stone or glass fitted closely together and highly polished. . . . . .
. . . . . The prevailing colour of the atrium is white. All around the doors and the windows of the Cubicula the wall is painted bright blue with red dado. The pilasters are white with the lower part yellow; thier capitals white heightened by blue and red; they are frm the House of the Centaur. In the square compartments, on a white ground, between the capitals of pilasters, are elegant groups of female figures on marine animals, and Cupids in chariots; some of the small enriched mouldings are from the cornice of the tomb of Claventius Quictus, and the atrium frieze above tablinum is copied from a side apartment in the Tragic Poet's House. It is composed of white figures of combatants in armour on foot and in chariots; shields and dead bodies lie prostrate. The ground of this frieze is purple, but the ground of the orginal is described as white, and the figures are said to be clothed in blue, green, and purple draperies. the females are Amazons, distinguished by the pelta or lunated shield. (see Statue No. 194 of the Greek Court.) the rest of the fireze is white, with patterns of bright-coloured lines in simple forms. Over each pilaster the frieze is broken by double figures of Victory, yellow and gold, which serve to support the beams which project to the edge of the compluvium. They were modelled by Mr. Raffaelle Monti, under the superintendence of Signor abbate, from a drawing by Mr. Mathew Digby Wyatt.
The compluvium is bordered with red standing tiles called antifixa, and the arrangement of Mazois in his restoration of the House of Diomed has been followed. The anitxa may be seen also on the model of the Parthenon in the bas-relief galery adjoining the Greek Court. The angle tiles, with a spout to discharge the rain water, merit attention. The sloping roof of the atrium, composed of light beams with panelling between them, has been chiefly restored from existing paintings; but few traces of woodwork remain in any part of these ancient cities without having been seriously disturbed; the atrium ceilings being of wood, were consequently destroyed; pictorial records are therefore our only authorites. Fortunately for us, the ancients seem to have delighted in depicting themselves and their ways of living, so that it is not improbable that the architectural specimens that we see on their walls are only the transcripts of the slender construtions which were in fact confined to the upper stories.
We must now go into the detail of the house and pass into each room as consecutively numbered in the plan, beginning in this instance on the left hand of the principal entance, keeping the wall of Atrium always to the left. . . . . . . . . .
Last edited by tulse hill terry on 9 Apr 2008 04:24, edited 2 times in total.
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tulse hill terry
- Posts: 688
- Joined: 25 Jun 2007 01:33
- Location: sarf lunnen