Children playing with a mask

Pompeian style painting „Children playing with a mask” This painting, from the former collection of the Lubomirscy family, the former owners of the castle of Łańcut, purchased by duchess Lubomirska, depicts a fantastic and allegorical scene – a cupid playing with two children, of which one is holding a mask – the head of Gorgon. The children are naked, the winged cupid has a drapery wound around his forearm. The painting is a copy of a painting discovered at a house overflown with lava and buried in volcanic ash, from Herculaneum. The explosion of Vesuvius took place in the year 79 AD, and both covered cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum, were discovered in the 1780s; since then, painting referred to as being in Pompeian style, became very popular among fashionable aristocracy. Four styles of Pompeian painting were distinguished between. Naturally, ”apart from these styles” so to speak, painting did develop that depicted still life to decorate dining rooms, made up of birds, fruit, fish or vessels of water. Beside these, one sees portraits of house inhabitants painted directly on the walls. The painting from Łańcut, ordered by duchess Lubomirska, is a decoration of the Chinese Apartment in the first floor of the castle, or actually the Pompeian Room at this apartment.