The Pushkin Museum in Moscow is hosting a rare exhibition titled "Return of the Warrior," featuring a unique 4th-century BCE fresco that was restored by Russian experts, marking its first public display. The exhibition, which opened recently, will be available to visitors until March 30, 2025.
The fresco, originally an end slab of a cist grave, was discovered in November 1871 in the territory of ancient Capua, now modern Santa Maria Capua Vetere in Italy. Dating to the period of the First Samnite War, it depicts a Samnite warrior on horseback, symbolizing a triumphant return from the battlefield.
The warrior is portrayed riding without a saddle, wielding a spear from which hangs a white tunic stained with blood and red spots. This garment represents a trophy captured from a slain enemy, signifying his status as a hero returning from war. The warrior's head is not covered by a helmet, suggesting he is not in battle but returning with a symbolic bloody trophy.
The fresco was initially acquired for the private collection of the Doria family before being sold to the University Museum of Tartu in Estonia. However, it had not been displayed due to its poor state of preservation, which included several layers of dust and a crack.
Between 2023 and 2024, the fresco underwent an extensive restoration at the All-Russian Scientific Center for Art and Reproduction Grabar. The restoration altered its appearance, and it is now unique in its preservation and artistic qualities. "This painting has a surprising freshness and allows you to literally feel the movement of the brush of the ancient master, to perceive his presence," said Alexander Gormatyuk, the head of the restoration, according to ANSA.
Officials of the Pushkin Museum expressed their excitement about the exhibit. "It is as if this Samnite knight has returned from the depths of time, when it was created, two and a half millennia ago, by an anonymous master, and now appears before visitors almost in its original vividness of colors," they stated, as reported by ANSA.
After the conclusion of the Tartu Peace Treaty in 1920, the fresco ended up in the Museum of Antiquities and Fine Arts of Voronezh University in Russia, where it remained for about a century. Due to its fragmented state, it was little known even to specialists, and its physical condition was poor from the very beginning.
The restoration process required the development of a special methodology. The drawing on the tuff was applied with tempera paints over plaster, and the paint had peeled off in places. Due to a crack in the stone, the slab was splitting in two.
Natalia Bakina, the scientific secretary of the Voronezh State Art Museum, emphasized the rarity of such works. "There are very few such works in the world," she noted, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
The exhibition at the Pushkin Museum is notably small, featuring only the fresco and seven pieces of red-figure pottery, all displayed in one showcase within the Olympic Hall of the museum.
After its display in Moscow, the fresco will be returned to Voronezh, where it will take a central place in the Hall of Antiquity at the Voronezh State Art Museum named after I. Kramskoy.
This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq