11 Feb 2015

Signs & Frescoes in Pompeii & Herculaneum

When I give talks on the history of signs painted on walls I often refer to their ancient history, going back at least as far as Roman times. Evidence for this comes from the ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum as seen before on these photos shared with me by Will Collin five years ago. (Ancient wall painting and ghostsigns are a bit of a recurring theme on this blog.)

Erik Winkler from the Netherlands has shared some more images with me, including a number of frescoes and contextual photos of a couple of painted signs that I’ve seen before. These are shown below, and it is interesting to see the perspex cover method used in at least one instance. Thank you Erik for sharing these, I am long overdue a visit and have now added to this ‘Lettering Locations’ map which will one day form the basis of a world tour…

In addition to these pieces of painted lettering and signage are many frescoes…

An unusual example of one on a floor…

And two more modern pieces of painted shop signage above contemporary fascias…

Thank you Erik for sharing these fascinating images.

• Ancient
• Erik Winkler
• Fresco
• Ghostsigns
• Herculaneum
• Italy
• Perspex
• Pompeii
• Protection
• Roman
• Schitterend