🏺🎨 The baker Terentius Neo and his wife from Pompeii

 🏺🎨  The baker Terentius Neo and his wife from Pompeii , the last picture (fresco) just before the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The wealthy  couple that was rising across Pompeii  through sheer grit.....🌋❤️‍🔥

✅  Neo was a successful baker, as the house had been modified to include a bakery, and he wears a toga, indicating he was a Roman citizen (a highly coveted status that conferred several legal rights). He holds a rotulus, a kind of scroll that suggests involvement in local politics or public affairs; there is even an inscription on the outside of the house that endorses a local politician, not unlike the yard signs of today .

 ✅ Neo’s wife is far from secondary: She is in the foreground and at the same height as her husband. She holds a stylus and wax tablet, further emphasizing her equal status, as well as the fact that she was educated and literate (a rare thing for men and women alike at the time). It is very likely she helped manage her husband’s business and political affairs and was far from the servient homemaker.

🧑🏻‍🏫 Details 

It is considered one of the finest pieces of art from the area of Vesuvius, it is also amazing for several reasons beyond its technical quality.

The portrait is unusual in depicting husband and wife as equals, members of a confident and fashionable middle class that was rising across Rome through sheer grit.

The Pompeain  fresco of Baker Terentius Neo and his wife is indeed remarkable for several reasons beyond its technical skill and its depiction of the couple as equals in a rising middle class:

✅Display of Literacy and Education: Both the husband and wife are shown holding objects associated with literacy, a relatively rare and highly valued trait for common citizens, men or women, at the time.

✅ Terentius Neo holds a rotulus, a papyrus scroll, which suggests his involvement in public affairs, local politics, or cultural events.

✅He also wears a toga, indicating he was a Roman citizen.

✅His wife holds a stylus and a wax tablet (diptych) and is shown with the stylus near her lips in a gesture of contemplation.

✅This strongly emphasizes her equal status and that she was educated and literate, likely playing a crucial role in managing the family's business and social life.

✅Realistic Features: The portrait is noted for its realistic depiction of the couple's faces, showing individual peculiarities or imperfections rather than the highly idealized, "god-like" features often seen in portraits of the Roman elite.

✅ This realism brings the individuals to life and is typical of Roman portraiture, though rarer in surviving frescoes of this type.

✅Social Status Symbolism: The couple, as a successful baker (a lucrative trade in Roman Italy) and his wife, were nouveaux riches—members of the wealthy merchant or commercial class.

✅Their choice of such a formal, intellectual portrait style was a deliberate display of their elevated status and ambition to conceal their humble origins and gain acceptance into polite society.

✅Equal Standing: As you noted, the portrait is unusual in the way it presents the couple:The wife is positioned in the foreground and at the same height as her husband, reinforcing her status as an equal partner.

✅Her attire is fashionable, including a pearl necklace and earrings, further marking their wealth.The fresco is preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN).

📌 On the right : this illustration of a famous fresco of Pompeii was made with digital painting technique and photorealistic rendering.

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