Artisans and Markets: The Economics of Roman Domestic Decoration

Abstract

This article investigates how consumer demand shaped markets for high-quality domestic decoration in the Roman world and highlights how this affected the economic strategies of people involved in the production and trade of high-quality wall decoration, mosaics, and sculpture. The argument analyzes the consumption of high-quality domestic decoration at Pompeii and models the structure of demand for decorative skills in the Roman world at large. The Pompeian case study focuses on three categories of high-quality decoration: Late Hellenistic opus vermiculatum mosaics, first-century C.E. fourth-style panel pictures, and domestic sculpture. Analyzing the spread of these mosaics, paintings, and statues over a database of Pompeian houses makes it possible to reconstruct a demand profile for each category of decoration and to discuss the nature of its supply economy. It is argued that the market for high-quality decoration at Pompeii provided few incentives for professionals to acquire specialist skills and that this has broader implications: as market conditions in Pompeii and the Bay of Naples region were significantly above average, the strategic possibilities for painters, mosaicists, and sculptors in many parts of the Roman world were even more restricted and, consequently, their motivation to invest in skills and repertoire remained limited. 1

Art and Markets in the Greco-Roman World

“…There is no evidence of prices in this period, but we can infer some information on the demand for paintings from a broader analysis of the artistic decorations in Pompeii. Flohr (2019) has analyzed the distribution of excavated houses by size and type of artwork. The most common decoration was represented by wall paintings, which were present in a majority of houses, including those of the middle class.…”

“…There is evidence of a workshop of mosaicists, including four freedmen, in the Albani Hills near Rome and of a workshop of painters in Castricio Street in Pompeii (Harris 2015). Flohr (2019) has estimated the demand for paintings by analyzing the distribution of almost a thousand pictures found in about two hundred buildings in Pompeii: in three-quarters of the cases, the decoration was limited to one or two rooms of the house, while only two houses have more than ten rooms with paintings. Taking into account lost works from destroyed upper floors and unexcavated parts of Pompeii, Flohr (2019) estimates that the demand for panel paintings in Pompeii could have been around a hundred per year, which would justify the activity of a local workshop or at most two competing workshops in the neighborhood (and the epigraphic evidence attests to the activity of painters in nearby Puteoli and Surrentum).…”

“…Flohr (2019) has estimated the demand for paintings by analyzing the distribution of almost a thousand pictures found in about two hundred buildings in Pompeii: in three-quarters of the cases, the decoration was limited to one or two rooms of the house, while only two houses have more than ten rooms with paintings. Taking into account lost works from destroyed upper floors and unexcavated parts of Pompeii, Flohr (2019) estimates that the demand for panel paintings in Pompeii could have been around a hundred per year, which would justify the activity of a local workshop or at most two competing workshops in the neighborhood (and the epigraphic evidence attests to the activity of painters in nearby Puteoli and Surrentum). This evidence suggests that a city of a million inhabitants such as Rome must have hosted many more workshops, employing many freedmen and slaves in standardized decorations, which were demanded not only by patricians, but also by the middle class of merchants and shopkeepers.…”

“…Flohr (2019) has shown that the large majority of Pompeian paintings came from houses of the "subelite" (with enough rooms to be relatively wealthy compared to the rest of the community, but less than the elite) and "middling groups" (living above subsistence level as small merchants and shopkeepers).https://doi.org/10.1017/S002205072400010X Published online by Cambridge University Press…”