Stock Photo - Roman fresco wall decorations of cryptoporticus A of the Villa Farnesia, Rome. Museo Nazionale Romano ( National Roman Museum), Rome, Italy. . . The paintings in the long corridor, which got light only from small high-placed windows, are on a white background. The illusionistic decoration shows a row of columns on a high socle decorated with ""grottesche"". In the background, pictures alternating theatrical scenes, scenes of worship, and landscapes seem to hang on a wall divided by pilasters. Some of the scenes are probably later restorations of the originals. . In the upper part a loggia holding sphinxes and statues of divinities rests on caryatids (architectural supports in the form of female figures). . Because there was limited time for excavation, only the more important decorative elements were removed from the walls. A drawing on the modern base on which the fragments are inserted gives an idea of the effect of the whole, which is known to us from a watercolor done at the time.