This is a detail of a fresco painting found at a villa at a site called Boscoreale. This small villa was, like Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. The frescoes from Boscoreale were particularly fine and particularly well preserved. The detail shows the crossed arms of a male figure, with the intricate folds of his cape, and the carefully articulated hands. On his left hand is a ring, which may be important to the meaning of the scene of which this is but a small part. The ring may signify his membership in a secret society or mystery cult. In the far right of the image is a swath of the characteristic cinnabar colour known sometimes as ‘Pompeian Red’, a distinctive colour of the Pompeian fresco painting.