The Unswept Floor Mosaic

The mosaic was found in 1833 during construction work in the vineyard of achille lupi near the bastione di sangallo porta ardeatina see a rome art.
The unswept floor mosaic. The unswept floor is a now lost mosaic by the 2nd century bc mosaicist sosus of pergamon. A mosaic from hadrian s villa now in the capitoline museums depicts a group of doves on a round bowl. This was said to represent the floor of a dining room after a banquet. By sosos of pergamon and here by the.
This splendid mosaic made up of tiny pieces of glass and coloured marble once decorated the floor of the dining room of a villa on the aventine hill in rome at the time of the emperor hadrian. It is now kept at the musei vaticani in rome. Sosos laid at pergamon what is called the asarotos oikos or unswept room because on the pavement was represented. In many respects this table top made by arianna gallo of koko mosaico is an unrelated trompe d oeil of ordinary stuff accumulated on a coffee table.
The unswept floor is a theme from classical mosaics such as one to be found in the vatican. Doves drinking from a bowl. The idea is to give the appearance of real objects littering a floor as a kind of trompe l oeil effect. The unswept floor that was shown in the photograph on wikimedia commons is actually a small part of a much larger mosaic as this tiny picture of the surviving portion of the mosaic illustrates.
2nd or 3rd century standing buddha from gandhara is made. Pliny mentions this trompe l oeil optical illusion in his natural history xxxvi 184. This depicts the floor of a room covered with the remains of a feast including fish fruit and other fragments of food. The unswept floor mosaic can assume almost any guise and pop up in an almost infinite variety of modern versions but it still remains firmly attached to its ancient roots.
There is a even a specific greek term for this asaroton. Detail from a mosaic that once decorated the dining room floor of a villa on the aventine hill rome at the time of the emperor hadrian. Herakleitos makes the unswept floor mosaic variant of a 2nd century bc painting by sosos of pergamon. This is a video showing the unswept floor mosaic on exhibit at the vatican museum.
The unswept floor a mosaic sosus unswept floor one of the few mosaics master we do know the name of is sosus of pergamos famous for his work the unswept floor which inspired later copies. The unswept floor mosaic by herakleitos in the decorative style known as asàrotos òikos inspired by sosus of pergamon 2nd century ad museum gregoriano profano vatican. The decorative theme is that known as asàrotos òikos or the unswept floor created in the second century b c.