The Styrous® Viewfinder: Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave

June 8, 2021

Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave

Lar - AD 1–100

bronze & silver

8 5/8 x 5 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. (22 x 14 x 6.5 cm)

Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave

May 7, 2021 – August 29, 2021

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is showing the Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave which re-creates life in the Italian city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Pompeii and other cities affected by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The black cloud represents the general distribution of ash and cinder.

Shown at the top of page is a statuette of a Lar (household deity) holding a rhyton (drinking vessel) and libation dish. Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, © University of Oxford.

Lares were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgamation of these.

They were believed to observe, protect, and influence all that happened within the boundaries of their location or function. The statues of domestic Lares were placed at the table during family meals; their presence, cult, and blessing seem to have been required at all important family events.

This exhibition reveals how, before Vesuvius blew up in AD 79 and rocked the Bay of Naples, people in Pompeii and nearby farms and villages were engaged in typical daily activities, many of which revolved around food and drink.

Forum of Pompeii with the entrances to the Basilica (left) & Macellum (right),

the Temple of Jupiter (front) and Mount Vesuvius in the distance.

Thousands were killed in the midst of their daily routines. The swiftness of the eruption and the depth of the volcanic cover of pumice and hot ash preserved the buried ruins, creating a time capsule that left the city of Pompeii virtually intact. Its rediscovery gives us a picture of what life was like in a thriving Roman city.

"Garden of the Fugitives"

plaster casts of victims still in situ

Antiquities on view in the exhibition run the gamut from luxury furnishings and tableware of precious metal; mosaics and frescoes; and marble and bronze sculpture decorating the home, to carbonized foodstuffs laid on the table. Together the objects open a vista onto the splendor and luxury loved by the wealthy Romans who called Pompeii their homes.

Fresco depicting fight in amphitheatre between Pompeians and Nucerians

This exhibition is conceived and developed by the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, and is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in collaboration with the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli and the Parco Archeologico di Pompei.