The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Hardcover. VG/VG (ex art library with usual stamps and labels on block, dj spine, title page verso, and inside rear cover. Pages are otherwise very clean and clear. Binding is tight.). Gray cloth boards with black spine lettering; color illustrated dj with mylar cover; xviii, 294 pp; bw and color illustrations. "In this study, Lauren Hackworth Petersen critically investigates the problematic notion of "freedman art" in scholarship, dependent as it is on elite-authored texts that are filled with hyperbole and stereotypes of freedmen, such as the memorable fictional character Trimalchio, a boorish ex-slave in Petronius's Satyricon. She emphasizes integrated visual ensembles within defined historical and social contexts and aims to show how material culture can reflect preoccupations that were prevalent throughout Roman society. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book explores the many ways that monuments and artistic commissions usually ascribed to freedmen spoke to a much more complex reality than that presented in literature."--Jacket. Contents: Introduction : the Roman freedman, "freedman art," and Trimalchio --; pt. I.; Public life and assimilation --; 1.; Rebuilding Pompeii : the Popidius family and the temple of Isis --; 2.; The visibility of the Augustales in Pompeii --; 3.; Memory making in the funerary realm : the tomb of the Baker in Rome --; pt. II.; Social integration : Domus and family --; 4.; "Freedman taste" in Domus decoration --; 5.; To claim a Domus : the house of the Caecilii at Pompeii --; 6.; Family and community at the Isola Sacra Necropolis : the tomb of the Varii.