The great Lillebonne mosaic is an ancient Roman mosaic found in 1870 in Lillebonne (France), the site of the Roman city of Juliobona. It is one of the most impressive mosaic pavements discovered in France.
It originally measured 8.6 x 6.8 m and is thought to date from the late 2nd or 4th century AD.
It is now conserved at the Musée des Antiquités de Rouen.
An overview of the city's ancient history The mosaic comes from a suburban villa in present-day Lillebonne, a town located at a “crossroads on the right bank of the Seine”.
Juliobona is considered the main city of the Kalete people and is mentioned as such by Ptolemy, Geography, II, 8, 5.
The site shows no traces of Gallic occupation, and appears to be an Augustan foundation dating back to the reorganization of Gaul between 16 and 13 BC. At that time, the city had an “orthogonal plan adapted to topographical constraints”.
Claudius' conquest of Britannia seems to have had an impact on the development of the city, which reached its apogee between the end of the 1st and the end of the 1st century AD, a period of economic prosperity as in all the cities of Gaul.
The city suffered the after-effects of the 197 power struggle between Clodius Albinus, governor of Brittany, and Septimius Severus, governor of the Danubian provinces, and underwent major restoration work.
The city's port gradually silted up, and Rouen overtook it economically. “The second century was thus one of slow decline for Lillebonne, accelerated by the crisis and by Saxon plundering (to which the estuary was exposed)”, with excavations showing traces of fires and the prevailing insecurity.
Juliobona lost its status as a city in the 2nd century and Rouen became the capital of the second Lyonnaise under Diocletian's reorganization. After the difficult period of the 2nd century invasions, the site showed little sign of revival.
In the 5th century, Lillebonne shrank around a castrum built by destroying public and funerary monuments, in particular around the theater: the latter was built for defensive purposes perhaps as early as 280–290, and the entire castrum was completed in the first half of the 5th century.
Rediscovery and peregrinations
Rediscovered and first interpreted by Abbé Cochet (1870-1879) The mosaic was rediscovered at an estimated depth of between 50 and 60 cm from the ground on March 8, 1870, in the Saint-Denis district, on land owned by the mayor of Lillebonne, Doctor Pigné. The mosaic was discovered by a workman commissioned by the cafe owner who rented the land to transform his courtyard into a garden.
Following a visit to the site by two members of the Société havraise d'études diverses on Sunday March 13, Abbé Cochet examined it on March 15 and 21, and gave a description later that month. The work was discovered “isolated from any modern construction” and carefully cleared, with “intelligent slowness”.
The discovery was reported in the newspapers, even though the work had not yet been uncovered, leading to “partial descriptions and often contradictory interpretations, stemming from the inevitable trial and error of their authors, who were in a hurry to be the first to arrive ”. Bouet surveyed the mosaic, while Duval, a tax collector from Lillebonne, produced a watercolor reproduction.
As a result of the discovery of terracotta statuettes for religious purposes during the excavation of the mosaic, Abbé Cochet indicated in 1870 that “the building, of which we have the paving, was a temple dedicated to Diana and Apollo”. However, this was an abusive interpretation, reflecting a “method of architectural identification based simply on iconographic considerations” according to Harmand, the 20th-century excavator of the site.
The original edifice is thought to have been destroyed by fire, as Abbé Cochet notes that “over the entire mosaic was a black, charcoal layer several centimeters thick ‘, in which were found ’terracotta statuettes, broken or whole” representing seated figures. The site was covered with fragments of tile, and roofing nails were also discovered.
Once cleared, the mosaic was summarily displayed at the site of its discovery, under a shed, and was for a time accessible to the public. Ownership of the mosaic was disputed between the landowner and the workman, and the 1879 judgement was in favor of the landowner.
Sales and trip to Russia (1879-1885)
The work was deposited and sold for the first time in August 1879 to Mme Merle for 20,000 or 23,500 francs, after unsuccessful bids by the Seine-Inférieure department, supported in particular by Abbé Cochet and for the Musée des Antiquités de Rouen.
The work was deposited by Giandomenico Facchina, a renowned Italian mosaicist (he had been involved in decorating the Garnier opera house in particular), assisted by three Italians and two Frenchmen (an engineer and an architect). The mosaic left its city of origin in various crates on July 1, 1880.
The mosaic was restored between 1880 and 1885 by two successive restorers: Facchina in 1880-1881 (this restoration would have been expensive, costing 12,000 francs), and Zanussi, heir to the Mazzioli-Chauviret firm, in 1883–1885. Zanussi was commissioned to reassemble the work at the Musée de Rouen before a second sale.
It was sent in 60 fragments to Russia, perhaps to be sold there, but apparently in vain, as no business was concluded during this journey, or at least no overall sale, although Darmon's work suggests that authentic elements were removed during this journey.
On the mosaic's return to France, it was restored for sale by “Italian mosaicists of identical training and experience, heirs to the modern Italian tradition”.
It was displayed in 22 fragments and auctioned at Hôtel Drouot on May 16, 1885. The Musée du Louvre and the Musée des antiquités nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye refused to acquire it, perhaps due to the manoeuvring of the curator of the Musée des Antiquités de Rouen, Maillet du Boullay. The work was sold for 7,245 francs, including costs, although it had been appraised at 100,000 francs, with initial purchase and restoration costs of around 30,000 francs.
Exhibition at the Musée des Antiquités de Rouen (since 1886)
After being restored once again, it joined the collections of the Musée des Antiquités de Rouen in 1886 (and not from the year of its discovery, contrary to what is sometimes claimed), in a room specially designed for it, “worthy of housing the mosaic”. Significant modifications were made in 1954.
The current presentation at the Musée des Antiquités de Rouen features a connection with a geometric decoration that is not the original one, but is the result of a restoration in 1886 or a remounting dated 1954, during the latest refurbishment of the museum's mosaic and sculpture room. According to Darmon, this geometric decoration comes from another discovery made in Lillebonne in 1836, preserved in the Musée des Antiquités and then mistakenly attached to the mosaic. Certain restorations and modern additions are also highly suspect, in particular the heads of the figures, which certainly look modern and thus prove that original elements were dispersed during the work's peregrinations.
Excavations and a new interpretation by Harmand The villa from which the mosaic originates was excavated by Louis Harmand in October 1964, April and October 1965. The excavator's work was hampered by modern constructions, and investigations were limited, in particular due to the destruction of archaeological layers.
Harmand confirmed that the building had no religious purpose and was not a fanum but a villa; however, this excavation did not include a systematic survey of the building plan and did not reveal any elements left in place during previous excavations of the large mosaic.
Despite this, the excavation revealed that the villa's other rooms, including “cramped, secluded corner rooms ”, were almost all fitted with red painted plaster and also with plaster with geometric decor, including alternating green, red and ochre panels.
Some painted elements were still in situ on the remains of walls preserved to a height of only 0.25 m to 0.30 m. The excavators found traces of red frescoes “except in a corner room of the front gallery ”. The villa in which the mosaic was discovered is estimated to date from the second half of the 2nd century. The villa had a front gallery (similar to the villa with the large peristyle at Vieux-la-Romaine) and a corner tower. According to Michel de Boüard, the villa's plan was of a widespread and stereotyped type, “a large rectangle 15 to 20 m long by 8 to 10 m deep, with variable internal partitioning”; a large room has corridors opening onto the façade, which is equipped with a portico. Harmand identifies the excavated building with a well-known model such as the villa at Maulévrier or Lébisey in Hérouville-Saint-Clair. According to Harmand, the villa measured 18 m from north to south.
The building was heated not by the floor but by terracotta elements installed in the partitions, and great care was taken to avoid heat loss. Excavations in 1964 revealed tegulæ mammatæ and tubuli and, in 1965, elements of the præfurnium were uncovered.
The building's owner was prosperous, and the mosaic adorned a dining room (triclinium) that was equipped with ceremonial beds. In the adjoining room, however, the floor was covered with a crude pavement, using “the most elementary coating processes”, with “flat stone elements and tile splinters juxtaposed”. The triclinium also featured painted and marble decorations, fragments of which were found during the first excavations. The walls were very flat, only “a few centimetres ” high and around 60 cm thick.
Description
The mosaic was found with a number of gaps, identifiable by a photograph taken in 1870. Although heavily altered, the mosaic is well preserved and depicts deer bellowing in a “remarkable thematic unity”, and in a wooded landscape reminiscent of the forests of Normandy, decked out in the colors of autumn, with tesserae ranging from yellow to red.
The mosaic was present in the triclinium, the villa's dining room, in a classic T and U configuration.The U was formed by a mosaic carpet of white tesserae 0.55 cm wide; the T was formed by the geometric carpet bar and the mosaic panel featuring the circle with the divinity and the trapezoids of the hunting scenes. The entrance to the room was to the east.
According to Abbé Cochet, the paving measured a total of 8.50 m by 6.80 m at its maximum. Cochet emphasizes the quality of the cement used to form the mosaic base, which “largely explains the good preservation of the paving”. According to Abbé Cochet, the area bearing the figurative panels measures 5.80 m long by 5.60 m wide, but is now 5.73 m by 5.92 m.
In addition to a fairly common geometric mat, it features a central motif measuring 2.55 m by 2.75 m, surrounded by four 1.20 m trapezoids. The part with figurative scenes was enclosed in a U-shaped border, white and black and 0.55 cm wide.
In the foreground geometric motifs The foreground is occupied by a geometric carpet of intersecting circles, which is not the main interest of the work.
At the time of its discovery, this section, which contains “on a white background, interlocking red circles”, measured 6.70 m long by 2.50 m wide according to Abbé Cochet and 2.25 m according to Darmon.
The geometrically decorated mosaic on display at the Musée des Antiquités does not correspond to the descriptions at the time of discovery, but to another Lillebonne work unearthed in 1836. Its elements “were wrongly combined with the large Lillebonne mosaic when it was transferred in 1954”.