Two cupids with a hare

Pompeian style painting „Two cupids with a rabbit” This painting, from the former collection of the Lubomirscy family, the former owners of the castle of Łańcut, purchased at the request of duchess Lubomirska (listed in the castle inventory of 1802), depicts a fantastic and allegoric scene – two winged cupids holding long-shaft arrows, between them stands a rabbit mid-jump. The cupids are almost naked, with pieces of cloth draped around their forearms. The is a copy of a painting discovered at a house overflown with lava and buried in volcanic ash, from Herculaneum. The explosion of Vesuvius took place in the year 79 AD, and both covered cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum, were discovered in the 1780s; since then, painting referred to as being in Pompeian style, became very popular among fashionable aristocracy. Four styles of Pompeian painting were distinguished between. Naturally, ”apart from these styles” so to speak, painting did develop that depicted still life to decorate dining rooms, made up of birds, fruit, fish or vessels of water. Beside these, one sees portraits of house inhabitants painted directly on the walls. The painting from Łańcut, ordered by duchess Lubomirska, is a decoration of the Chinese Apartment in the first floor of the castle, or actually the Pompeian Room at this apartment.