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Note: The most celebrated and
sophisticated mosaic from antiquity, measuring 5.82 by 3.13 meters
composed from over a million small tesserae.
Discovered on 24th of October
of 1831 in the House of the Faun in Pompeii, where it adorned
an exedra with a colonnade overlooking the central peristyle of the
house.
In 1832 Goethe wrote "neither the present nor the future will be
able to comment fittingly on such a remarkable work of art."
Experts believe it depicts a Hellenistic painting of unprecedented
conceptual breadth possibly by Philoxenes. The painting was well
known because it was found depicted in an Etruscan urn from Perugia
with the same scene in relief as well in Roman ceramic cups from the
workshop of Gaius Popilius.
Recently, researchers postulate that
the painting was by Apelles, a contemporary of Alexander the
Macedon. |
