A former Roman erotic mosaic representing a half naked couple returned to Pompeii more than 80 years after his flight by a Nazi officer during the Second World War, the Italian cultural heritage police announced on Tuesday.
The intimate work, featuring a man lying in bed with his female partner before him, was given by Germany following a diplomatic effort, the police said in a statement.
Located on a travertine plate, the mosaic panel dates between the end of the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD JC
It was taken from the area around Pompeii, near Naples, during the war by a German Nazi army captain assigned military logistics in Italy.
The German officer offered the play to a civilian, who kept him until his death. His heirs, originating, contacted the Italian authorities to organize his return.
Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of German origin of the Pompeii archaeological park, described the mosaic as part of a cultural turning point where daily intimacy has become a subject in Roman art, as opposed to heroic myths of previous centuries.
“Here, we see a new theme, the routine of domestic love,” he said, noting that the expression of the male figure “seems almost a little bored”.
The mosaic will now be exposed to Pompeii alongside hundreds of other objects and archaeological remains on the site of the ancient city destroyed by the eruption of Venuvius in 79 AD.
