FIG. 23. MOSAIC PICTURE
Floors in early times were of hardened earth, paving stones, or plaster. In the fifth century pebbles set in cement came into use in Greece, and from this kind of floor mosaic, plain and patterned, was derived. Pictures or decorative designs made of fine glass mosaic were also used as wall decorations. Three examples are on the tops of Cases 1 and 2 ([fig. 23]).
FIG. 24. OLD MAN SEATED ON A KLISMOS
The Greek and Roman furniture which has come down to us is necessarily small in amount and fragmentary because, like most modern furniture, it was made of wood and consequently has been destroyed by damp. There remain, however, some fairly complete pieces, and a considerable number of metal fittings and casings, as well as some models and many illustrations from vases. Among the objects from Cyprus in wall-cases in the corridor are two bronze tripods, and three ornaments consisting of goats’ feet and bulls’ heads from another. The bronze lions’ paws were feet for a large chair or chest. We have also a little terracotta chair with a diminutive figure in it and a three-legged table of the kind used to set beside a dining-couch, both from Cyprus, as well as a round table on three legs, of much later date (Case 2). Two lekythoi in Case K in the Fourth Room, decorated with interior scenes, show chairs of a very graceful and comfortable type, the Greek klismos, and the same kind of chair is seen on the grave-monument of a lady in the Sculpture Gallery (No. 4), and on a large amphora on a pedestal in the Fifth Room ([fig. 24]). The lady playing a kithara in the wall-painting in the Eighth Room is seated in a large armchair, the thronos. In Case 5 is a bronze casing of beautiful work for a piece of furniture, and in Case 2 a bronze chair-leg and an ornament terminating in the head of a young bullock. Two tripods and some bronze mountings from Cyprus will be found in wall-cases in the corridor. In the cubiculum from Boscoreale is a table of marble and bronze. The bronze rim which surrounds the marble top is inlaid with silver and niello in a beautiful pattern of palmettes and rosette ornaments. A couch, probably for dining (wrongly restored as a seat), and a footstool stand in the corridor between the Eighth and Ninth Rooms. Bedsteads, which were similar to this couch in shape, were merely frames on which thongs were stretched, like the old-fashioned corded beds, the interlaced leather bands acting as springs. The wooden frames were frequently decorated with bronze fittings, and in the Hellenistic and Roman periods inlay and mountings of silver, gold, ivory, and tortoise-shell were employed for the rich. Couches and beds were usually supplied with a raised head-rest, often finished with bronze animal-heads, such as the mule-heads in Case A in the Seventh Room and Case L in the Eighth Room.
FIG. 25. BRONZE CAULDRON
FIG. 26. GREEK TABLE-WARE OF PAINTED TERRACOTTA