The ancient Roman appetite for paintings showing nudity, copulation and large phalluses is to be celebrated with an exhibition of choice works found in and around Pompeii.
Opening on April 14, the show will highlight how relaxed the inhabitants of the doomed city were about sensual images, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the site director, said.
“Eroticism was everywhere, in houses, baths and public spaces thanks to the influence of the Greeks, whose art heavily featured nudity,” he said.
Buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, Pompeii was excavated in the 18th century, when the discovery of an image of Priapus, the god of fertility, weighing his penis on a scale, shocked archaeologists.
Images of phalluses were thought to bring wealth, fertility and good luck to
