Il giardino dipinto della Casa del Bracciale d’Oro

The House of the Golden Bracelet was called like this because the skeleton of a woman wearing a golden bracelet was found in one of its rooms. Three different decorative styles can be seen together here: the house was in fact restored after the earthquake of AD 62, but it also conserved the garden paintings belonging to the preceding decorations.

The walls were decorated with a black background socle with tufts of vegetal essences, a middle partition with a cane fence above which is a luxurious garden and an upper part with a black background with ornamental elements on red background, festoons and architectonical winds.

The decoration is dominated by the presence of a garden with flowers and shrubs such as oleanders, viburnums and strawberry trees, and it is populated by many birds, among which are swallows, doves, turtledoves, nightingales, magpies. By the side of a fountain with gushing water are herms with almost portrayal faces, holding little pictures depicting Maenads or Ariadne sleeping. Theatrical masks are hanging from above. On the back wall is a rectangular niche above which is a dove with its wings spread. The wall ends with a lunette decorated by a circular basin with four doves.

For its placement and its dimensions, this small room must have been a private space; it probably served as a small office, characterized by a soft light and by the contact with nature, a place like a secret shelter where the house owner could devote himself to his cultural interests.

The decoration of this room can be considered as the closest example in the Vesuvian area to the decoration of the famous room from the Villa of Livia in Prima Porta, Rome.