Much less large furniture has been found at Pompeii than is ordinarily
supposed. In not a single sleeping room has a bed been preserved; and
in only one of all the dining rooms have sufficient remains of the
dining couches been found to make it possible to reconstruct them.
Beds, couches, chairs, and tables were ordinarily of wood, which
crumbled away, leaving slight traces. Reference has been made
elsewhere to the marble tables standing in the atrium, and
occasionally in other parts of the house. Tables of bronze are
infrequently met with, while bronze chairs are almost as rare as
bronze couches.
[Illustration: Fig. 188.--Dining couch with bronze mountings, the
wooden frame being restored.]
Wood was not a suitable material for many classes of smaller articles,
and these, made of bronze, clay, glass, or stone, are found in great
numbers. Such are the lamps, the bronze lamp stands, the kitchen
utensils, the table furnishings, and the toilet articles of bronze,
ivory, or bone.
[Illustration: Fig. 189.--Round marble table.]
The wooden frame and end board of one of the dining couches just
mentioned was completely charred, but the form was clearly indicated,
and the woodwork has been restored (Fig. 188). The couch is now in the
Naples Museum, as are also the other articles of furniture illustrated
in this chapter.
The half figures on the front of the end board, shown more plainly in
the detail at the left of the illustration, were cast; the rest of the
mounting was _repoussé_ work. The bronze on the side toward the table
was inlaid with silver. The end boards were placed at the head of the
upper couch and the foot of the lower one (p. 263); the middle couch
did not have a raised end. The mattress rested on straps stretched
across the frame. The dining room in which the couches were found
adjoins the tablinum of a house in the seventh Region (VII. ii. 18).
[Illustration: Fig. 190.--Carved table leg, found in the second
peristyle of the house of the Faun.]
The carved marble supports of a gartibulum are shown in Fig. 121; a
complete table of a plainer type is seen in Plate VII. An example of a
round marble table, found in 1827 in a house near the Forum, is
presented in Fig. 189. The three legs are carved to represent those of
lions, a lion's head being placed at the top of each. A table of
similar design was found in the peristyle of the house of the Vettii,
with traces of yellow color on the manes of the lions (p. 326).
Among the best examples of ornamental carving is the marble table leg
in the form of a sphinx, found in the second peristyle of the house of
the Faun (Fig. 190). Effective also is the bold carving of the
gartibulum in the north atrium of the house of Siricus (VII. i. 25).
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