Fresco: Did you mean...?

The Bronze Age frescoes from Akrotiri on the Aegean island of Thera (modern-day Santorini) provide some of the most famous images from the ancient Greek world. Sometime between 1650 and 1550 BCE Thera suffered a devastating earthquake which...

This fresco is on the first landing of the columbarium discovered in 1852 CE at the Vigna Codini, on the strip of land between Via Latina and Via Appia. The fresco has crumbled from the wall, revealing the first-century CE opus reticulatum...

A fresco from the throne room of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos, often referred to as the 'Orpheus Fresco' depicts a seated lyre player and a bird in flight. It dates to c. 1300 BCE and this watercolour reconstruction was completed by Piet...

A Fresco (c. 60 CE) from the Roman town of Pompeii depicting Terentius Neo holding a scroll and his wife who holds a stylus and writing tablet. From the Villa di Guilia Felice. The villas of Pompeii were richly decorated with wall paintings...

A fresco fragment depicting Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy, from the House of Julia Felix in Pompeii, 62-79 CE. (now in Louvre Museum, Paris)

Frescoes are the source of some of the most striking imagery handed down to us from the Minoan civilization of Bronze Age Crete (2000-1500 BCE). Further, without written records, they are often the only source, along with decorated pottery...

A section of the garden fresco from the triclinium or dining room from Livia's Villa, Rome, 1st century BCE. The fresco runs around all four walls and gives a 360° panorama of a luxuriant garden with birds and insects against a brilliant...

High up on the wall almost lost in the shadows above a loculus of this columbarium one can just make out the outlines of a bird walking on a flowered garland from which hangs a grotesque mask. The columbarium was excavated in 1852 CE. The...

A detail of the griffin fresco reproduction from the throne room, palace of Knossos, Crete, (1700-1450 BCE).

Fresco depicting two Lares (protective deities, sons of the god Mercury) pouring wine from a drinking horn (rhyton) into a bucket (situla). They stand on either side of a scene of sacrifice. The head of the family makes offerings, a musician...