This thesis examines a Roman marble pinax in the collection of the Blanton Museum of Art (accession number 1981.96). Much of the most recent scholarship on pinakes has utilized a catalogue approach, wherein only the most essential information on a vast number of objects is given, followed by a cursory interpretation. While this method is useful for its recording and comparative advantages, the in-depth examination of a single pinax I utilize allows me to determine instead the role and function of a pinax within a Roman household. Following a formal and iconographical analysis, I suggest a possible reconstruction of the pinax’s missing half, with a maenad on one side and the chariot of Achilles on the other, which provides a fuller picture of this particular pinax. An examination of Roman sculptural traditions and workshops as well as the tool marks and stylistic properties evident in the pinax indicate a creation date in the second half of the first century A.D. and a potential provenance at Pompeii. I indicate that pinakes were part of a cohesive visual program of sculptural works in the peristyle garden through an examination of the material evidence of oscilla, herms, and masks with which pinakes were found and the wall paintings in which they all coexist. My final section deals with the ultimate function of this visual program: to express the high social standing of the house owner by communicating his likeness to a god. This phenomenon utilizes the visual language of the emperor under the changing social structure of the Empire, setting up the owner of the home as both emperor and deity in his own home. / text

This thesis examines a Roman marble pinax in the collection of the Blanton Museum of Art (accession number 1981.96). Much of the most recent scholarship on pinakes has utilized a catalogue approach, wherein only the most essential information on a vast number of objects is given, followed by a cursory interpretation. While this method is useful for its recording and comparative advantages, the in-depth examination of a single pinax I utilize allows me to determine instead the role and function of a pinax within a Roman household. Following a formal and iconographical analysis, I suggest a possible reconstruction of the pinax’s missing half, with a maenad on one side and the chariot of Achilles on the other, which provides a fuller picture of this particular pinax. An examination of Roman sculptural traditions and workshops as well as the tool marks and stylistic properties evident in the pinax indicate a creation date in the second half of the first century A.D. and a potential provenance at Pompeii. I indicate that pinakes were part of a cohesive visual program of sculptural works in the peristyle garden through an examination of the material evidence of oscilla, herms, and masks with which pinakes were found and the wall paintings in which they all coexist. My final section deals with the ultimate function of this visual program: to express the high social standing of the house owner by communicating his likeness to a god. This phenomenon utilizes the visual language of the emperor under the changing social structure of the Empire, setting up the owner of the home as both emperor and deity in his own home. / text

Cette étude a pour objet un motif de la peinture murale romaine, le pinax à volets. Il s’agit de montrer qu’au-delà de son caractère de motif secondaire, il a sa place dans l’introduction du volume et de la figuration dans le décor mural. Représentation d’un accessoire en trompe-l’œil dans les architectures illusionnistes du deuxième style pompéien, le pinax à volets reste un objet mobile et indépendant ; support d’une représentation figurée, il s’intègre à un ensemble décoratif du point de vue formel comme thématique. La première partie rassemble des sources littéraires, archéologiques et iconographiques au sujet de l’apparition du pinax réel depuis la Grèce archaïque jusqu’aux collections romaines. La deuxième partie définit le motif du pinax à volets en trompe-l’œil dans le décor mural de deuxième style pompéien. La troisième partie est une étude de cas qui replace les collections de pinakes à volets dans le contexte de l’habitat domestique et du décor de la pièce, en Campanie et à Rome, jusqu’à leur abandon au profit du tableau central. / This essay focuses on a motif of the roman wall painting, the shuttered pinax. It aims at showing that, beyond its nature as a motif of secondary importance, it has a part in the introduction of volume and figurative art in wall painting decoration. As the depiction of an accessory in trompe-l’oeil in the illusionistic architectures of the second Pompeian style, the shuttered pinax remains a mobile and independent item; as the medium of figurative representation, it fits into the decorative scheme, formally as well as thematically. The first part collects literary, archeological and iconographical sources on the emergence of real pinax from archaic Greece to Roman collections. The second part defines the shuttered pinax motif in trompe-l’oeil in the second Pompeian style wall-painting. The third part is a case study within context of domestic habitat and room decoration, in Campania and in Rome, until their disuse in favour of the central panel.