UK_627 Minoan wall-painting, 1375 BC
From earliest times the Minoans used painted plaster, often in plain red, to decorate their rooms. By the Late Minoan period, wall-paintings had become very elaborate. Colours, usually of mineral origin were applied to a plaster surface, often while it was still damp (true fresco technique).
By far the greatest number of wall-paintings in Crete come from Knossos, where walls bore figured scenes, apparently of ritual, including large-scale processional figures, and miniature scenes of bull- jumping or dancing. Occasionally the plaster was moulded to allow three-dimensional representation.
Figured scenes are rare elsewhere in Crete, though other sites have yielded fine frescoes. Some of the most characteristic are based on nature, with plants and animals.
In the Aegean world, paintings from Thera are much influenced by Crete, while further afield, frescoes of Minoan type have been found at the site of Tell el-Dab'a in the Nile Delta.
This is a copy of a Minoan wall painting
The 'cup bearer' is the one single reasonably well- preserved figure to have survived from amongst the hundreds in processional compositions that decorated the palace of Knossos at the time of its destruction in about 1375 BC. He has typical black locks and a slim waist, and carries a tall conical libation vase (rhyton), probably of silver. He wears a decorated kilt, and has a banded sealstone on his left wrist.
The original, from the South Propylaion of the palace at Knossos, is in the Herakleion Museum.
Copy by E. Gilliéron (fils)
British Museum
UK_627 Minoan wall-painting, 1375 BC
From earliest times the Minoans used painted plaster, often in plain red, to decorate their rooms. By the Late Minoan period, wall-paintings had become very elaborate. Colours, usually of mineral origin were applied to a plaster surface, often while it was still damp (true fresco technique).
By far the greatest number of wall-paintings in Crete come from Knossos, where walls bore figured scenes, apparently of ritual, including large-scale processional figures, and miniature scenes of bull- jumping or dancing. Occasionally the plaster was moulded to allow three-dimensional representation.
Figured scenes are rare elsewhere in Crete, though other sites have yielded fine frescoes. Some of the most characteristic are based on nature, with plants and animals.
In the Aegean world, paintings from Thera are much influenced by Crete, while further afield, frescoes of Minoan type have been found at the site of Tell el-Dab'a in the Nile Delta.
This is a copy of a Minoan wall painting
The 'cup bearer' is the one single reasonably well- preserved figure to have survived from amongst the hundreds in processional compositions that decorated the palace of Knossos at the time of its destruction in about 1375 BC. He has typical black locks and a slim waist, and carries a tall conical libation vase (rhyton), probably of silver. He wears a decorated kilt, and has a banded sealstone on his left wrist.
The original, from the South Propylaion of the palace at Knossos, is in the Herakleion Museum.
Copy by E. Gilliéron (fils)
British Museum