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
of the groups I. and II. had decorated this building or not. During the authenticating excavation of the main building (No. I.) some walls were found again under this building, suggesting the existence of an earlier building. 282 The dating of the imported ceramics found under the main bulding suggests thet at this place there was a settlement already in the Flavius period. 283 On the basis of the important material the terminus postquem in the dating of the wall-painting is the NeroVespasianus era, that is the beginning of the Flavius period. We can establish a more exact dating with the analysis of the stylistical characteristics and motif stock of the wall-painting. On the wall the interruption of the homogeneous, unicoloured surface of the larger panels of the middle zone by dark-shaded, richly decorated candelabrums, was a widespread solution in the second half of the 1 st century A. D. and at the beginning of the 2 nd century A.D. in the northern and estern provinces as a result of the influence of the Fourth Pompeian Style. Another characteristic of contemporary wall-paintings is the presence of highly complex, variable, carefully elaborated embroidery borders used to decorate the major panels and also the presence of the geen band, bordering the main zone. 284 A further characteristic is the placing of smaller, symmetrically arranged pictures over each other, "umbrella" candelabrum or the presence of repeated patterns on the candelabrums of darker background colour. On the dark-shaded pedestal the representation of water-fowls alternating with sedge in a water-side scene was very popular on the wall-paintings of western provinces at the end of the 1 st century A.D. and at the beginning of the 2 ,ld century A.D. 285 On the wall-painting from Mercin-et-Vaux (Aisne), in Gallia, 286 or on the one from Astorga in Hispánia 287 red and black fields alternate with each other. Similar wall-painting fragments are known from the villas in Oberwichtrack 288 and Winkel 289 which originate from the turn of the l st-2 nd ceturies A.D. Wall-paintings with similar treatment of colours were found also in Cologne, 290 Eist, Bonn and Xanten. 291 The wall-painting from Trier 292 is dating from the third quarter of the 1 st century A.D. and a similar fragment with red-black background colour, found in Cambodunum 293 is thought to be completed in 50 A.D. Water-side scenes with water-fowls and sedges were found also on a wall-painting in Avenches, dating from the second half of the 1 st century A.D. 294 The motifs of escaping animals among bushes and the representation of a vessel, which are presen on the pedestal of the Limoges wall-painting 295 are appear also on the Baláca painting. A pedestal, decorated with birds, which came to light in Virunum, is dating from the middle, second half of the 2 nd century A.D. 296 On the pedestal of the nymphaeum of Vienne, similarly, slim birds whith white feathers are represented on a dark ground colour. 297 The representation of a water-bird with white feathers between two sedges can be found also on the pedestal of the peristylium of the House of Menander in Pompeii, this painting belongs to the Fourth Pompeian Style. 298 From Pannónia red-black lateral wall fragments and water-side scenes were found in Aquincum, 299 Brigetio, 300 Poetovio. 301 The wall-painting from Savaria, 302 too, belongs to this period on the basis of its colour treatment and embroidery border. Representations similar to the still life scenes which appear in the medallions of the Red Dining Room were favourite decorative elements both in the main picture fields and, as if hidden, in some corners of the fields, following each other in a row, placed at eye-level on the walls of the buildings of towns destroyed by the eruption of the Vesuvius. Still life scenes appear already in the Second Pompeian Style, though their flourishing time was that of the Fourth Pompeian Style. 303 First of all three medallions of the House of the Ara Maxima 304 and the pictures in the angular fields of the House of the Stags 305 in Herculaneum, the latter ones representing mushrooms and skinned birds, remind of the Baláca still life pictures.
