Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1180196
6 THE CAPITOL DOME DESIGNING S-127: BRUMIDI'S MODELS AND WILHELM ZAHN'S 1828/9 PUBLICATION OF POMPEIAN PAINTING Scholars have long wondered what models Brumidi used to design this extensive mural cycle, and whether he adopted and adapted specific ancient motifs or the design was only more generally "classicizing." Brumidi clearly adapted the maidens on the walls in general from the floating figures that populated the frescoed walls in Roman homes in Pompeii and other sites around the Bay of Naples. In these elite homes and villas, single figures such as maenads (followers of the Graeco-Roman god Bacchus), victories (personifications of military successes) and other women (and sometimes men) would float at the center of otherwise plain, single-color wall surfaces (often black, red, or yellow). Reproductions of individual examples of these floating figures—removed from their broader Pompeian contexts—were extremely popular in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century decorative arts, appearing not just on walls, but on porcelain, pottery, fabrics, and even wallpaper, so the floating maidens in S-127 are part of a well-documented decorative trend. 6 But did Brumidi base these floating women and the other motifs from S-127 on specific Roman wall paint- ings? Tracing the early publication of the one, already-iden- tified Pompeian model used by Brumidi revealed the ancient origins of the design scheme for much of the room. As noted above, it was known that Brumidi based his floating maiden with a flag on a floating maenad from the House of the Ship (Casa del Naviglio) at Pompeii (see figs. 2 and 3). The quotation in S-127 is nearly exact: Brumidi echoed the ancient figure's posture, gesture, and costume (similar wreath, bare shoulder, whirl of drapery); to Americanize it, Brumidi merely swapped the thyrsus (staff of a maenad, entwined with ivy and topped with a pine cone) for an American flag, left out the maenad's tambourine, and changed the black background to blue. The ancient floating maenad was originally part of the larger decorative scheme of the south wall of a triclinium or dining room in the House of the Ship (Casa del Navi- glio) at Pompeii and was discovered on 13 November 1826. 7 While multiple nineteenth-century publications reproduce this floating maenad individually, only one book records her within the context of the entire painted wall in which she was found: Wilhelm Zahn's "elephant" folio (named for its pages' large height), Die schönsten Ornamente und merkwürdigsten Gemälde aus Pompeji, Herkula- num und Stabiae, Volume 1, published between 1828 and 1829 in Berlin (fig. 8). 8 Wilhelm Zahn, a German decorative painter, lived at Pompeii from 1825–29 and 1830–40, and drew Pom- Fig. 7. Constantino Brumidi, Aeolus, c. 1857, S-127, U.S. Capitol