Wall decoration (extant)

Thomas Staub

According to Mau (Mau 1882) this room was decorated in the Third Style with some remains belonging to an earlier First Style decoration. Nearly no traces of these decorations are preserved. On the W wall, the height of the socle-zone is visible: from 0.75 m h at the entrance door of the house to 0.43 m height at the northern end, a horizontal line is discernible in the partly preserved plaster. That means that the horizontal structure of the decorations did not follow the raising floor level. In the south-west corner, remains of a 0.13 m wide vertical light red corner lesene are visible. At 0.67 m to the south of the stuccoed pilaster at the opening towards atrium4, rests of a 0.055 m wide vertical stripe are visible, maybe the remains of a divider of the middle zone into different wall-fields. This vertical stripe is repeated at the corresponding place on the east wall, here with traces of light red colour. At the northern part, probably next to the now missing lesene towards atrium4, a 0.12 - 0.15 m wide light red vertical stripe can be observed. At the south-eastern corner, in ca. 0.8 m height, remains of an earlier, red-painted plaster cover part of the front side of the frame of the door towards side entrance 2, but it does not continue into the opening. This layer is covered by a ca. 0.03 m thick second layer of plaster, which continues onto the inner side of the frame.