When I was in Italy I went to Pompeii back in 1995. One of the things I really wanted to see while I was there was the Villa of the Mysteries. The Villa of the Mysteries is a name given to a preserved villa that has a dining room with remarkable wall painting depicting scenes from a marriage and Dionysian imagery. It broke my heart that when I got to Pompeii I discovered that like many other wonderful treasures in Italy this one was temporarily closed, at least for the duration of my visit. I first learned about these frescoes back in 1994 when I became a docent at the Kesley Museum of Archaeology in Ann Arbor. Not only does the museum teach its docents about history and art, but they actually have watercolors commissioned by Dr. Kelsey from around the period of time the originals were discovered. These replicas are 5/6th scale and are exact in every detail. For years, they were just sitting on top of a cabinet rolled up where only a curious docent like me or an archaeology graduate student might happen to see them. Thanks to some endowments, the Kelsey museum now displays these wonderful watercolors in a replica Roman dining room. The colors are more vivid than the originals because the originals were treated to preserve them which has actually resulted in a darkening of the original colors. See this article for more information about the display of the watercolors.
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