Two fresco fragments with myrtle branches



Two fresco fragments with myrtle branches

ΑΑ00004
Plaster
Reconstruction by E. Gilliéron fils and M. Cameron
Α: 16.5Χ 13.5 cm. Β: 16.5Χ12 cm.
Knossos
House of the Frescoes
Middle-Late Bronze Age, Neopalatial period. Middle Minoan ΙΙΙΒ-Late Minoan ΙΑ period:
1650-1500 BC:
Gallery:
XIII
Case:
144
Exhibition thematic unit:
Minoan wall paintings
The world of nature
Description
Myrtle branches with birds and monkeys hiding among them are found on two joining fragments forming part of the Monkeys and Birds Fresco from the House of the Frescoes. The leaves are painted olive-green and the stalks rusty red on a buff ground. The whole plant springs from orange-red marble revetment with a dark brown outline imitating wood. The myrtle was a particularly popular pictorial motif in Crete, found on fresco fragments from the north section of the Royal Road, Archanes and the Royal Villa of Agia Triada.
Bibliography:
Evans A., The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos. II, p. 458, fig. 270. Cameron, M. A.S. 1968. “Unpublished Paintings from the ‘House of the Frescoes’ at Knossos.” Annual of the British School at Athens 63, 1.
Author:
K. A.


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