In terms of style, the Hadrianic period represents a transitional phase in the history of ancient wall painting, where the standardized codes of the so-called Fourth Style were gradually abandoned in favor of more eclectic decorations. During this time, the preferences of patrons, workshop practices, and adaptation to architectural contexts led to a broader variability in schemes and quality levels. The case of Ostia remains emblematic due to the abundance and preservation of domestic wall paintings that vividly illustrate these trends. Similar variability is also observed in the execution techniques, where the choice of materials and their application were tailored to the patron's resources and the specific context, offering valuable insights into the painters’ remarkable adaptability. The recent discovery of significant wall paintings at Hadrian’s Villa appears to confirm these tendencies while simultaneously revealing a refined courtly art of the highest quality. The workshops involved were composed of highly skilled painters fully participating in the definition of a taste specific to the emperor and his court. Through the combination of non-invasive scientific carried out by a multidisciplinary and international team, valuable information has been obtained regarding the practices of painters in various second-century Ostian contexts, which were compared with analyses conducted on the Macchiozzo paintings at Hadrian’s Villa, discovered during excavations led by Columbia University in New York. This paper aims to reassess the Ostian evidence and preliminarily compare it with the paintings of Hadrian’s Villa from a technical, material, and executional perspective.
Tomassini et al. (Wed,) studied this question.