Portrait of Couple (Terentius Neo and wife), 1st century C.E. (Pompeii), fresco, 58 x 53 cm (National Archaeological Museum, Naples; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Everyone likes to look good for their close-up. Well, most everyone. This Pompeian couple, Terentius Neo and his wife, seem to have been more interested in having their portraitist capture a true likeness rather than airbrushing away any unflattering features.
Head of a Roman Patrician from Otricoli, c. 75–50 B.C.E., marble (Palazzo Torlonia, Rome; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Ancient Roman portraiture
In ancient Rome, individualized portraits were a staple of elite self-fashioning dating back to the Republican period when ancestor portraits created from wax or terracotta were commonly kept in the atrium of aristocratic households. While these ancestral images (imagines) no longer survive, echoes of this tradition can be seen in the numerous hyperrealistic busts we do have. Painted portraits—like this and another of a young woman from Pompeii—may have also been common but very few survive from domestic spaces. Though compelling in their visual impact, such images seem to have been less popular for interior decoration than images of mythological figures, still life, or gardens. Nonetheless, these two frescos provide a view into the social history of everyday people and their self-presentation, one that was notably different from the marble sculptures of aristocratic Romans. While no elite Roman man needed to display his literacy or erudition, these female figures foreground such accomplishments for all to see.
Tondo portrait of a Young Woman, 1st century C.E. (Pompeii), fresco (National Archaeological Museum, Naples; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Young man with a scroll, 55–79 C.E. (Pompeii), 40 x 40 cm (National Archaeological Museum, Naples)
Portrait of a young woman
The remarkable tondo portrait of the young woman from Pompeii shows a figure of learning and of wealth. Holding a pen (stylus) to her lips with her right hand, the figure balances a writing tablet (diptych) in her left. A delicate golden hairnet rests on her head while tight curls, replete with blonde highlights, frame her face. The hairstyle, fashionable in the 60s and 70s C.E., helps date the portrait to the period just before the destruction of Pompeii. Unlike the portrait of Terentius Neo and his wife, the image conveys a generically conventional beauty, an effect that has led some scholars to believe the image to be a representation of the famous Greek poetess Sappho holding her writing implements. A pendant (i.e. complimentary) image on the other part of the wall also featured a tondo portrait, in this case a male figure holding a scroll (rotulus). This figure appears to be a specific individual, suggesting that the companion female portrait is also a specific individual (and not a generic image of female beauty).
Terentius Neo (detail), Portrait of Couple (Terentius Neo and wife), 1st century C.E. (Pompeii), fresco, 58 x 53 cm (National Archaeological Museum, Naples; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Representing Terentius Neo and his wife
The portrait of Terentius Neo and his wife comes from a house within close proximity to a bakery complex in Pompeii, leading scholars to speculate that he may himself have been a baker though we can’t really know for certain (his identification as Terentius Neo is based on an inscription found nearby). Whoever the couple was, they were very deliberate in placing their portrait in the reception space of their house so everyone would see it when entering or passing by. And they look back, engaging the viewer with direct gazes. Like the tondi portraits of the young woman and man, this double portrait served as a public display of their literacy and wealth. Inside a square panel, three-quarter length busts form a composition whose symmetry and intimacy indicate we are looking at a married couple. Terentius holds a rotulus beneath his chin and appears to be someone that could be easily recognized on the street—he has wrinkles on his forehead, a slight beard, a wispy mustache, arched eyebrows, olive skin, and an expression of mild curiosity. He wears a white toga which signals that he is a Roman citizen (either a freeborn man or an formerly enslaved person who gained his freedom).
The wife of Terentius Neo (detail), Portrait of Couple (Terentius Neo and wife), 1st century C.E. (Pompeii), fresco, 58 x 53 cm (National Archaeological Museum, Naples; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Though we don’t know the name of his wife, she appears no less important in this image—she is positioned just in front of him and is of equal height. Like her female counterpart in the tondo, she also raises a stylus to her chin with her right hand and holds a diptych in her left. Her features are notably distinct—tiny curls along her forehead frame her pale, oval face and neck while her hair is parted in the middle with a band holding it in place. (Archaeological evidence dates the portrait to the years just before the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E. so her hairstyle, which was in fashion some twenty years earlier, was a bit out of step with the latest trends among elite women.) Her eyes and nose are large, while her mouth is somewhat small. Perhaps most notably, she has thick eyebrows that meet, and like her spouse, an ear that juts out somewhat. Her eyes are rather lively, animated by two small white dots of paint the artist has placed in the pupils to suggest reflected light. She is dressed in a richly colored, crimson tunic and mantle and wears pearl and gold earrings.
Amor and Psyche, c. 60–79 C.E. (Pompeii), fresco (National Archaeological Museum, Naples)
The individual specificity of the couple leaves no doubt we are looking at portraits. Both are in the “veristic” style, a realistic style popular in Roman art since the Republic that is often described as a “truthful” representation of an individual (though in reality, the veristic portrait busts were more “truthy” than “truthful” since they were often defined by a sort of exaggerated hyperrealism). The couple, it seems, wanted to be recognizable to all who encountered their portrait. And they wanted to display their marital bond to viewers not only through their close proximity and parallel gestures but also through the deliberate placement of a smaller pendant painting directly above their portrait. This mythological scene showed Cupid and Psyche (the son of Venus and the most lovely of human women) locked in a passionate embrace.
Perhaps what mattered most to the couple, however, was their literacy. We have no way of knowing whether this was real, aspirational, or maybe, simply, functional—that is, they could read as much as they needed to conduct their business. In the case of women outside the elite classes, reading and writing in any capacity was extremely limited, and so a portrait foregrounding that ability was indeed an expression of social achievement.
