Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
110
Fragment of Molding
The ends are broken irregularly, and the top-most fillet has been damaged. The top surface is flat and finished, as are the back and the bottom edge, under the lowest fillet. The surfaces are weathered.
The molding comprises the damaged top fillet, a cyma reversa that forms the main profile, and a fillet at the bottom. The fragment looks as if it could have come from the wall of a house at Pompeii or in Rome. Such moldings were used as the framing for areas of frescoed walls, real elements to contrast with the painted panels, the pictures painted on the walls, and the simulated architectural elements.
As a stone revetment, which is the most likely use, this fragment could have jacketed the lower part of the wall and been an adjunct to the framing of slabs of colored marble, giallo antico or the like. The relief of the Lararium in the House of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus at Pompeii exhibits such molding, in white marble (Guadagno, Carafa, 1973, p. 10). Moldings like this, in white marble, colored stone, or similar stucco also span the spectrum of First and Second Style wall decoration, in the House of Sallust at Pompeii and the House of Lorcius Tiburtinus in the same town (Schefold, 1962, pls. 18, 82).
Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer
