The decoration of the walls painted after the earthquake is not unlike that found in other houses upon walls of the fourth style. The designs are sketchy and without painstaking in the handling of details; the lines are coarse, the colors sometimes crude. The pictures in the panels are by different painters, some of whom were not without skill, yet none far above the average. One of the decorators had a fondness for representing mythological death scenes, manifesting a taste little short of barbarous.
The contrast between the earlier and the later decoration is so marked that it seems impossible to explain except on the assumption of a change of owners. We may well believe that about the middle of the first century this was the home of a family of culture and standing, who secured for the decoration of it the best artist that could be obtained, bringing him perhaps from Rome or from a Greek city. But within a score of years afterwards the house passed into the hands of the Vettii, freedmen, perhaps, whose taste in matters of art was far inferior to that of the former occupants, and a number of rooms were redecorated.
Apollo after the slaying of the Dragon
Agamemnon in the Shrine of Artemis
PLATE VIII.—TWO WALL PAINTINGS IN THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII
The excellent preservation of a large part of both the earlier and the later decoration gives the house the appearance of an art gallery. To describe fully and interpret all the paintings would require a small volume. The limitations of space make it possible to present here only the more important; we commence with those in the large room at the right of the peristyle, which are the most interesting of the entire series.
This apartment (q) may have been used either as a dining room or as a sitting room. The scheme of decoration is indicated in [Fig. 163], which presents the division of the end wall; the side walls had five large panels instead of three.