Of course Livia and Augustus could afford the best artists that money could buy but masterpieces such as these are hard to come by in any era. Remember this was done more than 2000 years ago! Birdcage Detail- Villa of Livia Prima Porta Birds Detail and the sun lighting leaves differently- Villa of Livia Prima Porta Birds and fruits Detail- Villa of Livia Prima Porta Birds and fruits Detail- Villa of Livia Prima Porta Half Eaten Fruit- the prosperity and fecundity of Pax Augusta Everything that has been painted into the wall, from the half eaten pomegranate fruit to the small birds flitting above the branches, the sun dappled leaves and the birdcage, has been executed with painstaking reality. The artist or artists who painted this were careful observers of nature.

Sharp Foreground fading into the background- Villa of Livia at Prima Porta Also in a lovely illustration of ‘depth of field’, the trees and features closest to the audience have been fleshed out in beautiful detail but the background fades into a gentle bokeh which has not been ruined by the passage of time. There are two fences- one a cane fence and another a white lattice like fence that has been developed in the painting giving a sense of depth. The painting is split into multiple levels. Garden Detail – Villa of Livia at Prima Porta The effect of this painting would have been to liven up the room and give it an airy spacious feel- almost as if the people in the room were actually sitting in a lovely garden with an unparalleled view. This painting covered the walls of a indoors room. The Villa is estimated to have been built between 30 and 25 BCE and you can almost see no other painting from that era this sophisticated. The garden painting from the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta However, another wonderful find in the place was a vaulted subterranean room that had the most sublime paintings on its walls. The paintings were removed from the archaeological site in 1951 because of deteriorating conditions. Notably one of the finds from the house was the imposing statue of Augustus that is mostly associated with the emperor.

Livia was the wife of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. In 1863 archaeologists unearthed magnificent finds from what was called the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta (slightly north of Rome).

Gardenscap villa of livia