Rooms 90-94 (XC-XCIV) are dedicated to sculpture and domestic furnishings from ancient Vesuvian towns. The display has been designed as to invite visitors to enter homes in an intimate way, to rediscover the taste, the habits and the symbolic universe which characterized them. Refined bronzes, marbles, terracottas and frescoes convey the warm, everyday atmosphere of domestic spaces.
Each element contributes to unveal the various aspects of home living, from the furniture (seats, stools, benches, tables, monopods), to the smaller objects (braziers, oil lamps, chafing-dishes, candelabras, cups) and the lively decorations (sculptures, fountain ornaments, oscilla medallions, frescoes). Technique, craftsmanship and art blend together in a close dialogue that profoundly influenced European taste between the 18th and the 19th centuries, even mirrored in modern design.
The gallery set-up was conceived as an integration with the one proposed in rooms 85-89 (LXXXV-LXXXIX), dedicated to “Everyday life objects from Vesuvian cities”.
Room 90 (XC) offers an immersive experience dedicated to the furnishings from Vesuvian cities and to the House of the Faun at Pompeii.
Rooms 91-93 (XCI-XCIII) are dedicated, respectively, to decorative garden sculpture, furniture, as well as lighting and heating tools.
Room 94 (XCIV), the Hall of Griffins, is named after the 19th-century furnishings, commissioned in 1870 by Giuseppe Fiorelli, who was at the time Director of the Museum and the Excavations of Pompeii and got inspired by a Pompeian original piece with a griffin-shaped foot, also on display. Other evocative exhibits are the copy of Narcissus by Vincenzo Gemito (the original Roman sculpture is displayed in Room 91), together with a selection of watercolours, engravings and photographs that document the modern fortune of Pompeii.
