BY putting together, in our imagination, the mosaic floors, the fragments of wall paintings, and the marble linings, we can gain a fairly certain knowledge of what the finer Roman interiors in Londinium were like, and we may further add to the impression by remembering the many precious objects in silver, bronze, pottery and glass, which are in our museums. Broken remnants of wall paintings have been found in large quantities, and pieces are preserved at the British, the Guildhall, and the London Museums, also at the Society of Antiquaries. Some account of several of them was given by Roach Smith in his Illustrations of Roman London, from which Fig. 104 is reduced. The fragment (5, Fig. 104), now with the others in the British Museum, is part of a pilaster-like strip about 8 in. wide, of foliage springing symmetrically on each side of a central vertical stem; it is on a dark ground, and marginal lines divide it off from a red space which covered the main surfaces of the wall. This “pilaster” was doubtless one of several. The morsels (6 and 7, Fig. 104) evidently belonged together; the one-sided nature of the design suggests that it was next the angle of a room; and the loop in the upper part of 7 looks like the end of a festoon; 9 is somewhat similar; and the others may all have belonged to “pilaster” strips.

The method of dividing up the wall space with strips of plain colour or with “pilasters” was very general. A simpler scheme was to have marginal borders only, and these were frequently of considerable width, made up of many bands and lines of colour. Dadoes were very general, sometimes only a plain band of colour or a horizontal bar running into the margins; at other times they were fully decorated: two examples lately illustrated in Archæologia, from Caerwent and Silchester, are really fine work. The latter had a row of “panels,” alternating square and round, set with leaves and ears of corn, on a red ground between dark top and bottom bands.

Stripes and Margins.—A piece of wall of considerable height was found at Bignor, having a quadrant skirting at the bottom, a plain dark band as a low dado, and the space above divided into panels. At Cirencester a fragment was found which showed a band of fair yellow, edged with margins of white separating spaces of a cool grey-green. At the Society of Antiquaries is a piece of plaster showing fine red and green spaces, divided by a white band and a black line—very simple, but beautiful colour (Fig. 105).

Of a great number of fragments in our museums one cannot determine if they only represent margins or whether they may have come from vertical strips. A piece of plaster from Silchester shows a broad band of red, then two white lines separated by one of black, and then a surface of grey, except for other thin black lines. A piece of plaster at the Guildhall had a dark green band, probably 3 in. or 4 in. wide, then a strip of rather transparent crimson 1½ in. wide, finished against a yellow line, then an interval of white 1 in. wide, followed by the green again 1¼ in. wide and a yellow line, then 2 in. of white and a single yellow line followed by a white area. This was certainly a margin, and here we get an example of a method of gradating the border into the general field. In 1785 “some large pieces of painted stucco” were found in Lombard Street (Archæol. viii.). Drawings made at the time are in the Guildhall library. A piece was banded green and black, with the addition of thin marginal lines. Two of the pieces were from borders having lines with additional touches. One had merely groups of comma-like hooks springing from the line , and the other, little fleur-de-lis forms on a white band edging a bright blue space. These were, I think, coarser variants of the treatment shown in 6, Fig. 104. The margins were sometimes “shaded” like mouldings; there are one or two examples of this treatment at Silchester.

Pilasters.—In some cases the ornamental vertical strips may not have been contained within pilaster-like forms. A fragment in the British Museum, which has an umbrella-like calyx to a number of springing stalks, may be one of these (Fig. 106). It is on a brown-red ground, and there are some other small fragments with leaves on a similar colour. The cast-shadows make me think that it was independent of a pilaster. The colour and workmanship appear very similar to the festoon of foliage from Southwark, described below; probably such uprights usually upheld festoons. The head rising from a calyx illustrated by Roach Smith came from another similar vertical composition (8, Fig. 104). Two small pieces at the Guildhall represent a similar upright (Fig. 107). Again, in the British Museum is a very simple vertical upright, something like a prolonged ear of corn (9, Fig. 104).

Figs. 108, 109, 110, at the British Museum, are from pilasters. Fig. 110 is a restoration of 3, Fig. 104. Fig. 111 is a small fragment at the Society of Antiquaries; this, too, probably came from a vertical stem or a pilaster. Sometimes the pilasters imitated marble.

Dadoes.—A sketch at the Society of Antiquaries shows the walls of a plain little room found in Leadenhall Street, which had pink margin bands along the skirting and up the angles, and another pink stripe about 2 ft. above the floor. The general surface was white.

Other dadoes seem to have been divided up into small plain “panels” or diagonal lattices. At Silchester there is a fragment with a green band, about 1¼ in. wide, crossing another at right angles, having a red line parallel with the green band with a “blob” at the angle. This seems to have represented a dado treatment (Fig. 112). At the British Museum are pieces of plaster painted with narrow red bands on a green ground, apparently parts of a plain lattice pattern. At the Guildhall is a small piece of plaster having a blue band edged by a white line and with a yellow line beyond the red ground, and another at right angles (Fig. 113). This is probably part of a dado; there may have been little subjects or sprigs in the square spaces. This is a notable example of adding “pearling” to the edges of bands or the lines, a favourite method of the painters of Londinium, as several of the other sketches show.

A large fragment of decoration at the British Museum imitates marble. A circle of green speckled “porphyry” has a margin of red “porphyry,” with figured “marble” of pink-yellow beyond. The circle is defined by scratched lines drawn on the plaster by a compass as a guide for the decorator. This was doubtless part of a dado for which the size of the circle is entirely suitable. Further, fragments of a similar dado were found at Cirencester in position at the foot of a wall. This is described by Buckmann and Newmarch, but they did not recognise the marbling as such. One square panel contained a circle speckled “dark pink and black”; the panels on either band were yellow with wavy markings. Here, again, porphyry and marble were imitated. At Silchester, fragments of marbling have been found, and in the Rochester Museum are many other pieces. Most of these would have been from dadoes. A wall was discovered in January 1922, in the centre of Gracechurch Street, the plaster of which “still retained the lower part of square panels painted in black outline, with a simple ornamentation around, and the painted plaster gave the impression that it had been coloured in imitation of marble.”

Two fragments at the British Museum, which were illustrated by Roach Smith and Wright, are covered with a diaper arranged thus,

with little flowers and figures in the intervals. These must, I think, have come from a dado. The little figure on one of the pieces is now broken, but a sketch by Fairholt in the Victoria and Albert Museum shows it complete with a level band at the top. It is so engraved by Thomas Wright, and I think that part must have been broken off since it was drawn rather than that the drawing was restored. Wright says that these fragments were from a large building near Crosby Square. This pattern is on a fine red ground.

At the Guildhall Museum is a piece which is fortunately larger than ordinary, and allows for the pattern to be restored (Fig. 114). The ground was covered with circles, small and great, the latter containing sprigs of flowers, all on a dark ground. This, I suppose, was also from a dado. The larger outer circle is made up of curious forms, which comparison shows were rose-petals. A fragment found in the Lombard Street excavations of 1785, of which there is a drawing in the Guildhall Library, shows segment of two circles, one within the other, red on bright blue, and apparently part of a powdering of small double circles. In the cloister of Lincoln Cathedral there used to be preserved, or at least kept, a large piece of a dado having a big rhombus with Amazon-shield forms at the ends, set within a long rectangular panel; this was of good workmanship and possibly of the second century.

Foliage.—In the London Museum is a morsel of pilaster, about as big as an open hand, having small leafage painted on a brown-red ground. The leaves are sharp and struck in in a masterly way; it is really beautiful (Fig. 115). The leaves spread from a central stem or line, and it is a part of a suspended festoon, I think, rather than of a growth of foliage. This must be the fragment found in Southwark. “The débris of Roman villas, with pavements, ornamental bowls, and pieces of painted plaster have been found. One of these last, in Mr. Syers Cuming’s museum, has on it a slender stem with green leaves on a dull red field” (Mrs. E. Boger, Southwark, 1895. Mr. Cuming was a well-known antiquary).

In the British Museum are, as said above, two fragments of a scheme of decoration, which seems to have consisted of festoons hanging from slender uprights (6 and 7, Fig. 104). Fig. 116, from the Guildhall, is, I suppose, a variety of vertical stem, but it may be part of a festoon.

Figures.—Some walls had figures in panels or set singly on the general ground. At the Guildhall is a morsel of plaster containing parts of two small dancing figures, which occupied a panel not more than 8 or 9 in. high (Fig. 117). From the composition it appears that there would have been three figures altogether, filling a square panel (Fig. 118). The central figure is of a darker hue than the others, and apparently the face is male; probably it is a faun with two nymphs. The painting of this is of high competence, and in full Pompeian tradition. The little panel, one of a series, would have been set at the centre of a wall division. Roach Smith illustrated the head of a figure of Mercury on a red ground; this was probably a single figure painted on a general ground and not included in a panel. Evidences for figures of full size have also been found.

A good foot on a blue ground and a piece of drapery of large scale of fine execution are in the British Museum: these are said to have come from Leadenhall Street (The Basilica?). Wright describes some fragments found at Great Chesterford, Essex. “A considerable variety of rather elegant patterns, among which were some representing portions of the human figure. The most remarkable of the latter was the foot of a female, as large as life, with drapery flowing round it. In one of the larger rooms of the villa at Combe End, in Gloucestershire, the lower part of the wall remained covered with fresco painting, on which were a row of feet, also as large as life, which had belonged to some grand paintings.”

Parts of inscriptions have also been discovered. A morsel was found on Tower Hill of “white wall painting with the letters [large capitals] S V P in reddish colour.” At Woodchester, some fragments “were painted with large capital letters which had formed part of inscriptions” (Wright, p. 195).

Cast-Shadows.—It was the practice in figure and foliage painting to boldly reinforce the forms with cast-shadows (see a fragment of a figure in Roach Smith’s Illustrations, pl. 14). A piece of a foliage tendril or festoon in the Rochester Museum, from the villa at Darenth, has cast-shadows. This is of long, delicate, grey-green olive leaves on a red ground, and the sharp shadow below forces it into prominence. Several of the ornamental patterns found in London were reinforced by shadows. A striking example is the large scroll foliage pattern from Leadenhall Market, where separate shadow lines and touches are laid almost like a secondary pattern. This, I think, from the scale of the work, must have been part of the decorations of the Civil Basilica described in Chapter II.

Provincial Roman painting is not fine as compared with the great things in either Greek or Gothic art, but we must remember, in comparing it with anything we can obtain to-day, that it was the ordinary journeyman decorator’s work of the time. It is certainly far beyond the standard of common work which we reach to-day; and Roman London, on the testimony of the arts, must have been quite a civilised place. A full study of the fragments in country museums ought to make an interesting subject for a student who is prepared to take up a definite piece of research on the history of art in Britain. Further, suggestions for enlarging the scope of work undertaken by present-day “painters and decorators” might be gathered from these ancient paintings. Our workmen are capable of much better work than is ordinarily demanded of them. Their skill in graining was noticeable; it was the last field where any freedom was left the workmen, and it was probably for that very reason (unconsciously functioning) that architects have tried to kill it. It is our duty to demand free and interesting work. A point to be thought of in regard to the Roman decorations is the character of the designs. These are not laboriously set out, transferred from a full-sized drawing, and painfully “executed”; they are swiftly painted in masterly brush strokes and varied at will for the fun of the thing.

Marble Wall-Linings.—In London, at Silchester, and elsewhere, fragments of coloured marbles, and even of porphyries, have been found, which suggest that they were parts of wall-linings, or rather of dadoes. Wright says, of the Great Villa at Woodchester: “Several slices of marble, of different sorts, but chiefly foreign, were also found. These had, perhaps, been employed to encrust the walls. Some of these pieces were not more than a quarter of an inch thick.” At Silchester pieces of porphyry have been found not more than three-sixteenths of an inch thick, and also pieces of fine white marble. At Colchester, fragments of Purbeck and white marble and porphyry have just been dug up. At the British Museum there are many small pieces of marble of various colours, and some of red and green porphyry. A piece of white marble at the British Museum has a shallow edge moulding such as I have frequently seen on dado-slabs in Rome. Such moulding is an excellent way of joining up continuous slab work. The pieces of green porphyry at the British Museum are from the site of East India House (where the Bacchus pavement was found), and they were given by Sir W. Tite in 1884, who, about that time, wrote on the mosaic pavement. These pieces are cut into forms—a part of a circular band and a triangle; they must have belonged to some handsome piece of work, like an Opus Alexandrinum pavement. It looks as if this building, close by the Forum and Basilica, was of special importance—perhaps the governor’s palace.

There must have been skilled marble workers in London. This is proved by the fact that fragments of polished native marbles have been found. Roach Smith, as before said, speaks of “native green marble.” Fragments of Purbeck are common.

At Silchester evidence has been found that mosaics were applied to the walls of a chamber in the Baths; and at Wroxeter a considerable fragment of wall mosaic was found in place many years ago.