We don’t know much about who made Roman art.  Artists certainly existed in antiquity but we know very little about them, especially during the Roman period, because of a lack of evidence such as contracts or letters.  What evidence we do have, such as Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, pays little attention to contemporary artists and often focuses more on the Greek artists of the past. As a result, we do not study specific artists but consider them generally, as a largely anonymous group.

The painting below is called a "fresco" which means that it was painted onto the wall while the plaster was still wet. The paint and plaster dry together, chemically bonding which has allowed this painting to last for over 2 000 years. The artist who created it would have been highly skilled, yet the work was not signed, so we know nothing about its creator.