Blogging from A to Z: Y is for Young Bull, House of the

Atrium, House of the Young Bull. Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Hi, everyone. Today, we’re going to look at the House of the Young Bull. This house was not open when I visited Pompeii, so I’m going to have to “wing it” a bit from other sources.

Unknown. Statuette of a Bull, 25 B.C. – A.D. 79, Silver with gilding.
14 × 4.5 × 14.2 cm (5 1/2 × 1 3/4 × 5 9/16 in.), 2001.7
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California

The house gets its name from a statue that was on the plinth you see next to the atrium. That statue now lives in the Getty Collection, which graciously permits bloggers to use its images under their Open Content Program.

Unlike many of the houses in Pompeii, we know that this one belonged to L. Pontius Saxesus; a seal with his name on it was found near the main entrance.

The house was originally excavated in 1836, but that project was abandoned. Unfortunately, the many frescoes were lost as a result; no efforts had been taken to preserve them.

This was what we now call a Hellenized home, with a peristyle garden and other Greek architectural influences. What wall art does remain seems to have been in the so-called First Style, in which stucco was painted to represented various types of marble.