3-095-818 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London; photographer: Paul Highnam"/Heritage Images

Cast of lost frieze (?) from Aula Regia mounted over cast of scrolls and flowers. Composite of two casts showing a frieze from the Aula Regia (main hall) of the Domitian's Palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome. The Aula Regia was excavated in the early 1700s, and many fragments of it were drawn in situ by Piranesi. Some elements were moved to the Farnese collection and others remained in situ. This particular detail, showing a wing Cupid and a leaping panther set in a framework of scrolling flowers, comes from a frieze that is known in eight recorded fragments. This fragment is now seemingly now lost but was reproduced elsewhere in the early 1800s.