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.
The piece itself is remarkably tiny. The whole thing is more a tile in itself, but an ’emblema’ would be a possibility. One might wonder, though, if and how a captain of the Wehrmacht could in 1944 hope to make it back over the Alps with it alive, or if he possibly bought it at the beach on holiday in 1960.
If this thing is genuine, difficulties to pinpoint its original with precision may indeed be, as in August/September 1943, Pompeii had been impacted by Allied bombardments, notably after an 1944 Vesuvius eruption in March (cf. ‘Pompeii Airfield’). The first bombing of Pompeii took place August 24th.
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“At 10 pm in the evening of yesterday, twenty-fourth of the current month, the excavation site at Pompeii was struck by three bombs during an aerial bombardment of nearby towns in the Vesuvius area: one bomb fell on the Forum area, another on the house of Romulus and Remus, causing considerable structural damage; a third bomb fell on the Antiquarium, with serious damage to archaeological material, which is only partially salvageable. (…)”
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…that 1944 eruption was of course AFTER the bombardment.
However, great to see they handed it back. What are those torque like thingies hanging on the wall in the mosaic?
Perhaps the officer was fortunate not to have been spotted by a Feldgendarme when absconding with that piece. Then again, it might not have made any difference.
More likely some local looted that, and then sold it to the officer…