Imperial Styles, Frontier Solutions: Roman Wall Painting Technology in the Province of Noricum

Most of today’s Austria was part of the alpine province of Noricum, formally incorporated into the Roman Empire in the first century C.E. As trade flourished the area was quickly Romanized and this is reflected by surviving wall paintings exhibiting high proficiency in painting and plastering technique and utilizing precious and rare pigments.

This contribution examines the differences that can be found in roughly contemporaneous Roman wall paintings from Noricum. In the context of an ongoing study of Roman pigments, the chemical profile of the top paint layers of plaster fragments in museum collections that displayed monochrome and large-scale application of commonly available Egyptian Blue and expensive Cinnabar/Vermillion were analysed semi-quantitatively by portable XRF. Then stratigraphic cross sections of wall painting samples were made from a selection of plaster fragments that included every plaster preparation layer down to the arriccio. These were examined by light microscopy, SEM/EDX and digital image analysis. Through this process, this study intended to determine if there is a correlation between changes in pigment production and painting and plastering technique.

These methods were able to reveal the technical differences in how wall paintings were prepared and how pigments were used in different ways at several Roman sites of Noricum. The sites closer to Italia province showed artisanship more closely resembling that used in the central Empire, while those further north evolved a unique style. This finding reflects trade routes and the development of regional techniques in the Alpine area.