August Mau

August Mau

August Mau (15 October 1840 in Kiel – 6 March 1909 in Rome) was a German art historian and archaeologist who worked with the German Archaeological Institute studying and classifying Roman paintings that survived the volcanic eruption at Pompeii.

Biography

Mau was born in Kiel, where he read Classical Philology at the University of Kiel, and then at the University of Bonn.

He moved to Rome, for reasons of ill-health, in 1872,^[1] where he became Secretary to the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (German Archaeological Institute)^[2] and catalogued the holdings of its extensive library.

He studied and classified the Roman paintings at the city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by volcanic eruption in 79 AD. The paintings were in remarkably good condition due to the preservation by the volcanic ash that covered the city. Mau first divided these paintings into four Pompeian styles still used as a classification.^[3][4] His interests lay in Pompeii, with inscriptions and Roman wall paintings, where he built upon the earlier work published by Wolfgang Helbig and Giuseppe Fiorelli.

Mau died in Rome in 1909.

Publications

• Pompejanische Beiträge. Reimer, Berlin 1879
• Geschichte der decorativen Wandmalerei in Pompeji. Reimer, Berlin 1882.
• Führer durch Pompeji. Furchheim, Naples 1893
• Pompeji in Leben und Kunst. Engelmann, Leipzig 1900
• Katalog der Bibliothek des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts in Rom. Löscher, Rome In parts, 1913–1932,

References

1. "The Life and Legacy of Francis Willey Kelsey Exhibition: Pompeii and Mau". University of Michigan. Retrieved 2026-05-17.
2. Pedley, John G. (2012). The Life and Work of Francis Willey Kelsey: Archaeology, Antiquity, and the Arts. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11802-1. August Mau was a well-known nineteenth-century German archaeologist and librarian, whose important book Pompeji in Leben und Kunst Francis Kelsey translated, with some modifications.... Mau had moved to Italy in 1872 for health reasons and became secretary of the Deutsches Archäeologisches Institut in Rome.
3. "France's Roman Heritage". Archaeology Magazine. April 2016. Retrieved 2026-05-17. Its frescoes were designed in the Second Pompeian Style, according to August Mau's nineteenth-century classification of the four major styles of Roman painting.
4. Gazda, Elaine K.; Haeckl, Anne E. (1991). Roman Art in the Private Sphere: New Perspectives on the Architecture and Decor of the Domus, Villa, and Insula. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-08314-5. Mau developed an elaborate chronology of four styles for republican and imperial Pompeian masonry and painted walls that, in its broad outline, has held firm to the present day.

Further reading

• Reinhard Lullies (ed.): Archäologenbildnisse. Porträts und Kurzbiographien von klassischen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. (Zabern, Mainz) 1988. ISBN 3-8053-0971-6

External links

• Works by August Mau at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about August Mau at the Internet Archive