Echidna, attended by a dolphin and winged sea-serpent, floats on the surface of a ribonned and pearl enriched bracket of Roman acanthus evoking heroic virtue. Echidna the chimerical armoured and snake bearing 'mother of all monsters', a nymph with 'draco' serpent body, who 'dies not nor grows old', is imagined as guardian of the deep cave Arima in Hesiod's 'Theogony' and Homer's 'Iliad'.