Pompeii welcomes home erotic mosaic looted by Nazi officer
The intimate artwork, featuring a man reclining in bed with his female partner standing in front of him, was handed back by Germany following a diplomatic effort, the police said in a statement.
Set on a slab of travertine, the mosaic panel dates to between the late 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.
It was taken from the area around Pompeii, near Naples, during the war by a German Nazi army captain assigned to military logistics in Italy.
The German officer gifted the piece to a civilian, who kept it until his death. His heirs, realising its origin, contacted the Italian authorities to arrange its return.
Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the German-born director of the Pompeii archaeological park, described the mosaic as part of a cultural turning point where everyday intimacy became a subject in Roman art, as opposed to the heroic myths of earlier centuries.
'Here we see a new theme, the routine of domestic love,' he said, noting that the male figure's expression 'seems almost a little bored'.
The mosaic will now be put on display at Pompeii alongside the hundreds of other items and archaeological remains at the site of the ancient city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. REUTERS
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
a day ago
- Straits Times
Sports-Top-ranked Waters shines at ESPYs as pickleball steps into the spotlight
Find out what's new on ST website and app. FILE PHOTO: Pickleball world number one Anna Leigh Waters attends the ESPY Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 16, 2025. REUTERS/Rory Carroll/File Photo LOS ANGELES - Pickleball phenom Anna Leigh Waters became the first athlete from her sport to attend the ESPY Awards, marking what she called a "super cool" milestone both for herself and the rapidly growing game. "It's amazing for me to be here, but also for the sport that I'm able to be here and represent pickleball," Waters told Reuters at the annual event that was held on Wednesday to celebrate the best in sports. "I'm the first pickleball athlete to be at the ESPYs, so it's an honor." Waters, 18, has emerged as one of pickleball's brightest prospects as the sport surges in popularity across the United States and beyond. She believes the game's accessibility is fuelling its rapid growth. "Everyone can play it," she said. "I say it's easy to learn, hard to master. Any age, anywhere around the world, people just love to play pickleball. So I think that's why it's so popular. Everybody can play with everybody." Waters, who turned pro at 12 years old, is on a 69-match winning streak in singles and has won 163 gold medals in her career, making her arguably one of the most dominant athletes in the world. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Mindef, SAF units among those dealing with attack on S'pore's critical information infrastructure Asia How China's growing cyber-hacking capabilities have raised alarm around the world Asia At least 34 killed as tourist boat capsizes in Vietnam's Halong Bay Singapore 1 dead, 1 injured after dispute between neighbours at Yishun HDB block Singapore Vessels from Navy, SCDF and MPA to debut at Marina Bay in NDP maritime display Asia Autogate glitch at Malaysia's major checkpoints causes chaos for S'porean and foreign travellers Asia SIA, Scoot, Cathay Pacific cancel flights as typhoon nears Hong Kong Singapore A deadly cocktail: Easy access, lax attitudes driving Kpod scourge in S'pore She said she is on a mission to prove pickleball is more than just a backyard pastime for retirees. "What we're trying to show people is that it's a much younger sport and that it can be very competitive," she said. With pickleball's expansion into mainstream sports culture, Waters is already setting her sights on a bigger stage. "I hope pickleball will be in the Olympics. A lot of people are saying Australia," she said, referring to the 2032 Summer Games in Brisbane. "I'll be 25, so hopefully I'll be able to compete. That would be amazing. So looking forward to Australia for sure." As she mingled with some of the biggest names in sports, Waters reflected on pickleball's meteoric rise. "It's definitely blowing up. It is starting to snowball," she said. "Seeing it rise and being able to rise with it has been an experience I won't forget." Pickleball - a hybrid of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong - has exploded in popularity in recent years, experiencing 311% growth over the past three years, with attendance, sponsorships, and revenue all reflecting that remarkable surge. REUTERS
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Straits Times
Concert review: SSO scales majestic An Alpine Symphony, soars with Korngold Violin Concerto
An Alpine Symphony In Images + Korngold Violin Concerto Singapore Symphony Orchestra Esplanade Concert Hall July 18, 7.30pm The Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) performing music with the accompaniment of projected visuals is not something novel. Back in 2010, the orchestra under Shui Lan's direction played Claude Debussy's La Mer (The Sea) against stunning imagery of marine life provided by SSO first violinist William Tan, who is well-known as a diving photographer. Romantic German composer Richard Strauss' tone poem Eine Alpensinfonie or An Alpine Symphony (1915), at almost 50 minutes, is double the length of Debussy. Sometimes criticised for bombast and self-indulgence, the work has weathered well in concerts and on record. Now add some 400 photographic stills on-screen by German photographer and film-maker Tobias Melle, himself a professional cellist, and the overall experienced is enhanced. A resident of Munich, his views of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, heard alongside music director Hans Graf's taut direction of the orchestra, made for a visual and aural spectacle. The hall was cloaked in darkness for the opening of this dawn-to-dusk experience in the mountains. The moon, sunlight creeping over the crags and panoramic vistas defined the transition from Night to Sunrise. This early climax matched Strauss' ambition, if not quite as memorable as the corresponding sequence in his earlier Also Sprach Zarathustra. The music follows a group of mountaineers from their ascent, through the terrain of woods, waterfalls, meadows (with cows aplenty) and glaciers, encountering risks and doubts before reaching the summit for the work's biggest climax. If there were a composer who could vividly illustrate all this musically, Strauss was the man. The subsequent thunderstorm, safe descent and sunset with a return to darkness was no less enthralling. The orchestra responded magnificently, with special mention going to the brass, for its overtime efforts both onstage and offstage. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore A deadly cocktail: Easy access, lax attitudes driving Kpod scourge in S'pore Singapore 'I thought it was an April Fool's joke': Teen addicted to Kpods on news that friend died Asia Cool photo spots, viral food videos: Malaysia plans to woo Chinese tourists via social media Asia From propaganda to passion: N. Korean TV show mimics K-drama to fend off banned media from the South Singapore New auto pet wash service in Buona Vista draws flak, but firm stands by its safety Singapore 314 suicides reported in Singapore in 2024, remains leading cause of youth deaths Asia 'Guardian angels': Taiwan's dementia-friendly village promotes ageing in place Life US tech firm launches probe into Coldplay 'kiss cam' couple after clip goes viral The concert's cinematic arc began much earlier with Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto (1947) which began SSO's season opener. One of the most popular 20th-century violin concertos, it was famously premiered by great Lithuania-born virtuoso Jascha Heifetz with music drawn from four of Korngold's Hollywood movie scores. Violinist Daniel Lozakovich (left) performing the Korngold Violin Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. PHOTO: CHRIS P. LIM It did not matter whether these films - Another Dawn (1937), Juarez (1939), Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Prince And The Pauper (1937) – have more or less been forgotten, as the music lives on in this masterpiece. The sumptuous melodies and lush scoring through its three movements was well realised by the orchestra and young Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich. His is not a fire-breathing virtuosity which gets in your face, but one more intimate and subtle. As such, there were moments in the first and third movements where he risked being overwhelmed, despite the restrained accompaniment kept on a tight leash. There were no worries, however, in the slow movement's Romance, where his refined and sweet tone clearly shone through. As if to make up for an earlier reticence, his generous and no-holds-barred encore of Johann Sebastian Bach's Fugue from the unaccompanied Violin Sonata No.1 in G minor (BWV.1001) showed where his sympathies truly lay.
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Straits Times
Alan Bergman, Oscar-winning lyricist behind The Way We Were, dies at 99
Oscar winning songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman arrive at the 26th annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards in Hollywood, California on April 22, 2009. NEW YORK - Alan Bergman wrote a song with his future wife on the day they first met. Over the next 60 years they never stopped making music together. Bergman was one half of one of the greatest American songwriting duos. The other was his wife Marilyn, who died in 2022. Together, the couple wrote the lyrics for The Way We Were and The Windmills of Your Mind, tunes for the film Yentl, and the theme songs for 1970s television comedies Maude, Alice and Good Times. 'It was a terrible song, but we loved the process,' Bergman said in 2011 of that first collaboration. 'And from that day on, we've been writing together.' The songwriting team went on to win three Oscars, four Emmys and two Grammy awards, and to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980. Their lyrics were set to the music of composers including Michel Legrand, Marvin Hamlisch, John Williams and Quincy Jones. Singers ranging from Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra to Johnny Mathis, Barbra Streisand and Sting recorded their songs. Bergman died on July 17, aged 99, family spokesperson Ken Sunshine told Reuters. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Critical infrastructure in S'pore under attack by cyber espionage group: Shanmugam Singapore What is UNC3886, the group that attacked Singapore's critical information infrastructure? Singapore Alleged Kpod peddler filmed trying to flee raid in Bishan charged with 6 offences Asia Indonesia court jails former trade minister for 4½ years in sugar graft case Singapore Singapore police in contact with Indonesian authorities over baby trafficking allegations Singapore NTU upholds zero grade for student accused of using AI in essay; panel found 14 false citations or data Singapore 7-year-old girl, cabby taken to hospital after vehicle pile-up in City Hall area Singapore Former NUH male nurse charged after he allegedly molested man at hospital 'That's the adventure' Bergman wrote his first song when he was 13 years old and continued to pen lyrics into his 90s, after his wife's death. The song Wherever I May Go (for Marilyn) was a tribute to her. 'It's such a deeply personal song,' composer Roger Kellaway told the San Francisco Classical Voice newsletter in 2022. 'You could look at this, like, that's how committed Alan is to the relationship and how committed he is to songwriting.' Alan Bergman was born in September 1925 in Brooklyn, New York in the same hospital as his wife a few years later. But the couple didn't meet until 1956 when they were introduced by the composer Lew Spence in Los Angeles. Bergman studied at the University of North Carolina and completed a Master's degree in music at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he met songwriter Johnny Mercer. Mercer, who wrote the lyrics of Moon River for the film Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1961, became his mentor. Despite his desire to write songs, Bergman first worked as a TV producer in Philadelphia. At Mercer's urging he moved to California in the 1950s. 'I was writing both music and lyrics in those days, and he would listen to what I was writing and critique it and encourage me,' Bergman told JazzTimes magazine last year. 'I would not be here today without him. He was a great influence.' Bergman liked to use a baseball analogy to explain the couple's writing process - pitching and catching ideas back and forth. He preferred to have the music before he began to write the lyrics. Composers would leave their compositions with the couple. They would then write words that fit the notes. 'We believe that words are at the tips of those notes and it's our job to find them,' he told radio station NPR in 2011. 'That's the adventure.' 'The kids' Yellow Bird was the duo's first money-making song, but their big break came with Frank Sinatra's 1960 album Nice 'n' Easy. The crooner became a friend of the couple. He referred to them as 'the kids.' They had another career breakthrough when they worked with composer and producer Quincy Jones in 1967 on the song In the Heat of the Night for the film of the same name. They won their first Academy Award for best original song for writing The Windmills of Your Mind the following year, with Michel Legrand, for the film The Thomas Crown Affair. They were awarded another Oscar in 1974 for The Way We Were with Marvin Hamlisch, as well as a Grammy for Song of the Year in 1975. In 1983, the couple were the first songwriters to have written three of the five Oscar-nominated songs. Two years later they took home their third Academy Award for Yentl, starring Barbra Streisand. The singer became a friend and frequent interpreter of their music. Streisand recorded more than 50 of their songs. She released the album What Matters Most as a tribute to the Bergmans and their music. 'When she does our songs, she finds things that always surprise us,' Bergman told Reuters in 2011. 'She deepens them. She gets all the nuances, everything, so it's thrilling.' The couple's Emmys included awards for the TV movies Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975) and Sybil (1977), and the song Ordinary Miracles from the 1995 Streisand special Barbra: The Concert. The couple married in 1958 and had one daughter. Bergman said he loved songwriting. Doing it for so long with someone he loved made it that much more beautiful. REUTERS
