K. Palágyi Sylvia szerk.: Balácai Közlemények 2008/10. (Veszprém, 2008)
KIRCHHOF, ANITA: The decorative system and reconstruction of the red dining room at Baláca - A balácai vörös ebédlő dekorációs rendszere és rekonstrukciója
Gy. Rhé I found a fragment representing a detail of the bottom of the above-mentioned bronze vessel, together with the green ground line. 239 Though the two fragments cannot be adjusted, on the basis of the treatment of colours their connection is obvious. (Fig. 24) The yellowish brown dark ochre colour gave the background colour of the vessel on which the shading of concave and convex surfaces (e.g.the flutes on the side of the vessel) was brought about by dark brown and black colours while the parts lighted up were painted with creamy and white colours. The colours on the shape suggest that the vessel was made of metal. We think of a cantharus made of copper 240 the belly of whis was fluted, on its high foot, widening downswards even the characteristic circular member can be detected. The representation of a finely elaborated cantharus appears also on the stucco decoration of the painting. During the feasts wine was mixed up with water in these large vessels and it was scooped from it into smaller drinking cups. 241 The copper vessel constructed on the basis of the fragments can be put on the reconstruction below the candelabrums richly decorated with grape, this solution is suggested by both its dimensions and its fuction. On a wall-painting from Limoges, from the years of 60.-70. of the 1 st century A.D., on which the colours of the zones are identical with those of the Baláca painting, also represented a vessel below the candelabrums on the pedestal of the painting, where vessels alternate with eagles. 242 Later the motif appeared on ther mosaic floors of the main building No. I. 243 Vine tendrils covered by rich bunches of grapes growing up from a cantharus or a crater are favourite decorative elements of other branches of Roman fine arts as well, besides wall-paintings they appear on mosaics, 244 and it was a popular motif of stone carvings, too. 245 The decoration of the pedestal was elaborated according to the tripartition of the main field. On the basis of the characteristics of the fragments of the pedestal below the two lateral narrower fields either sedge or some other marsh-plant were represented, and below the two following candelabrums with black background, considering analogous representations, cantharus was depicted. Finally the place of the household animals was below the middle wide red field. We cannot exclude the possibility that also some smaller bushes were painted among them. Every figure and motif of the picture field stands on the bottom-line, part of the bushes a bit hang down into the "dirt strip" below the bottom-line. This kind of representation of vegetation is characteristic of the plants occurring on the pedestal of contemporary wall-paintings. The thickness of the "dirt strip"can be reconstructed with the aid of the wider black surface below the bottom of the cantharus. 246 Cocks occur rarely in water-side scenes on pedestal, though they appear on several wall-paintings 247 and mosaics 248 of towns in the neighbourhood of the Vesuvius as participants of cock-fights or on still life pictures either bundled as prepared for cooking or as still alive and as picking up bunches of grape. The colour-schemes of the Red Dining Room the colours applied on the plaster, the course of painting the room, the character and layers of the mortar The fracture and lower parts of the fragments used up for the built in reconstruction made by E.B. Thomas, were coated by gypsum, seemingly with conserving the original thickness of the mortar. The complete reconstruction is possible only after the removal of the gypsum.
