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Lot Essay
MONUMENT TO MARRIAGE AND CITIZENSHIP: A ROMAN FUNERARY RELIEF OF A HUSBAND AND WIFE
Nearly life-sized in scale and superbly sculpted in high relief, this rediscovered funerary monument bears witness to the commemorative traditions of the late Republic and early Imperial periods in Rome. Beyond its ancient context, it also serves as an important document in the history of collecting and the dispersal of ancient sculpture across Italy and Europe during the Renaissance and Grand Tour eras.
The relief depicts a man and woman standing frontally, with the woman to the right, her hand resting on the man’s left wrist, a gesture identifying the pair as husband and wife. The man wears the most characteristic of Roman garments, the toga, over a tunic. It is draped over his left shoulder with a thick gathering of cloth positioned diagonally over his chest, which he clutches with his left hand. On his left ring finger, he wears a ring with a raised bezel. The woman is dressed in a long, finely pleated tunic, secured at the waist with a cord and fastened with buttons along the upper right arm, over which a palla is draped from her left shoulder. Mortises along the edges and to areas of the drapery indicate that the relief was once completed with now‑missing restorations, likely from the 17th or 18th century.
In both style and scale, this relief belongs to a small but well-defined group of funerary reliefs from Rome, most comprehensively studied by D.E.E. Kleiner (Roman Group Portraiture: The Funerary Reliefs of the Late Republic and Early Empire) and V. Kockel (Porträtreliefs stadtrömischer Grabbauten). As both authors demonstrate, such reliefs were commissioned by former slaves to assert the pair’s legitimacy as free Roman citizens. The affectionate gesture of the woman placing her hand upon the man’s wrist can be viewed as a modified version of the dextrarum iunctio, the clasping of hands that functioned as a symbol of marriage and a mark of citizenship. As Kleiner notes, “Some slaves were allowed to marry, but these were considered quasi-marriages and often were not recognized either by the masters or the state. When these slaves were freed, however, their new family was legitimized and it was this legitimacy that they were, in a sense commemorating” (op. cit., p. 18). The toga likewise reinforces the idea of Roman citizenship. As Kockel explains, “this garment was of outstanding importance and accordingly carried a strong ideological charge…the depiction of liberti [freedmen] in the toga served to underscore their new status as Roman citizens and…proclaimed this status intelligibly to all through dress alone” (op. cit., p. 15).
Reliefs of this type – encompassing both full-length and bust-length depictions of the deceased – date almost exclusively to the late Republican and early Augustan periods, with only a few known from the Julio-Claudian and Flavian eras and the 2nd century (Kleiner, op. cit., p. 6). They were almost always found in Rome and its immediate environs, including sites along the Via Appia and Via Tiburtina, as well as Ostia. As Kockel observes (op. cit., p. 7), these reliefs were "not set up as independent monuments in open spaces like grave altars or stelae," but instead functioned as architectural elements, integrated into the façades or interiors of tombs. The absence of framing around the figures was intended to provide the illusion of free-standing statuary, a more costly and exclusive art form.
Full-length portraits presenting only husband and wife together, such as this example, are exceedingly rare, with Kleiner (op. cit., pp. 201-203, nos. 11-13) recording only three other known examples: two in the Capitoline Museums, Palazzo dei Conservatori and one in the Museo Nazionale, Chiostro di Michelangelo. Whereas two of these reliefs show the man and woman standing apart, only the poorly preserved example in the Museo Nazionale shows the couple in dextrarum iunctio (inv. no. 774; see pp. 118-119, no. V, 1 in A. Giuliano, ed., Museo Nazionale Romano: Le Sculture, vol. 1, pt. 3), thus further emphasizing the importance of the present relief. The affectionate gesture of the woman placing her hand on the man’s wrist is perhaps best paralleled by the bust-length example of a husband and wife, now in the Vatican Museums and formerly in the collection of Alessandro de' Medici (inv. no. 592; see Kockel, op. cit., cat. no. L19). The comparatively simple toga worn by the man, without the complex sinus (the loose overfold slung from beneath the left arm), can also be observed on the fragmentary relief with a man and child, now in the Museo Nazionale, Giardino dei Cinquecento (inv. no. 994; see Kockel, op. cit., cat. no. O27).
FROM ROME TO CANNES: THE EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY OF A ROMAN MARBLE FUNERARY RELIEF
This relief has a remarkable modern history, one that connects Renaissance and Grand Tour era Rome to 19th and 20th century France. It can first be identified in an inventory and related drawings of the Palazzo Peretti alle Terme compiled circa 1623–1631, where it is described as "Doi figure insieme, Un console colla moglie di basso rillieuo, p.mi 7" ("Two figures together, a consul with his wife, in low relief, 7 palmi"; for the inventory, see pp. 21-51 in M.G. Barberini, op. cit. V. Massimo (op. cit.) also makes reference to the present relief in his history of the villa, but the author is not specific about what inventory he draws from, although he notes the presence of 1655 and 1696 listings of the collection). While the inventory was previously thought to be dated to circa 1680-1685, more recent research undertaken by A. Seidel has argued for the earlier date; see n. 8 in “The Peretti Montalto Collection of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Sculptures: Bernini, Giambologna, and Beyond,” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, vol. 43, pp. 181-217). According to the inventory, the relief was displayed on the staircase of the palazzo’s piano nobile. As 7 palmi corresponds to approximately 156 cm. – slightly larger than the relief's present dimensions – it is likely that restorations to the heads and lower edge were in place when the inventory was taken.
Originally built by Cardinal Felice Peretti (1521-1590), later Pope Sixtus V, the Palazzo Peretti alle Terme formed part of the Villa Montalto complex (also known as the Villa Peretti Montalto), the largest Renaissance villa ever to stand within Rome's walls. As M. Sapelli (pp. 141-143 in “Le Antichità della Villa di Sisto V presso le Terme di Diocleziano: Consistenza e Fasi Successive,” Bollettino dei Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie, vol. XVI) and Barberini (op. cit., pp. 15-18) recount, after a series of land purchases near the Baths of Diocletian from 1576-1578, Cardinal Peretti commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to design a palace on the grounds in 1580, which was known as the Casino Felice. In 1585, the Cardinal’s sister, Camilla Peretti (1519-1605), came into possession of adjoining land, upon which Fontana built another structure, the imposing Palazzo alle Terme, also variably known as the Palazzo Peretti, Palazzo Peretti alle Terme, or Palazzo a Termini. This larger palace served the increased needs of Sixtus’ papal court. The Villa Montalto was further enhanced with lush gardens and enclosed by a large perimeter wall punctuated by six monumental gates.
At the same time, Cardinal Peretti began amassing a sizable collection of ancient sculpture for his new villa. As the site had been occupied by aristocratic residences during the Roman Imperial era, finds uncovered during construction were likely incorporated into the collection (see Sapelli, op. cit., p. 143). Cardinal Peretti also purchased sculptures from other local sources, such as the 1st century A.D. statues of the playwrights Menander and Posidippus (the “Two Consuls”), now in the Vatican, which were discovered in the vineyard of San Lorenzo in Panisperna.
Given the lack of documentary evidence before the circa 1623-1631 inventory discovered by Barberini, it is impossible to know when this relief entered the collection of the Villa Montalto and whether it was directly acquired by Pope Sixtus V or by later owners of the complex. Indeed, Pope Sixtus' nephews and heirs, Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di Montalto (1571-1623) and Prince Michele Damasceni Peretti (1577-1631), also greatly expanded the collection with both ancient and contemporary sculpture (see, for example, Bernini's Neptune and Triton, 1622-1623, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. A.18:1-1950), which served as the centerpiece of a large fishpond with elaborate fountains on the property). It therefore seems likely that if the relief was not acquired by Pope Sixtus himself, it entered the collection during Alessandro and Michele's ownership.
After Michele’s death in 1631, the villa passed to his daughter, Maria Felice Peretti (1603-1650), and her husband, Bernardino Savelli (1606-1658), thus bringing Peretti ownership to an end. Following their deaths, the villa and its contents were inherited by their son Giulio (1626-1712). Mounting debts, however, forced him to declare bankruptcy, and in 1696 the villa and its contents were sold at public auction to the Genoese Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Negroni (1629-1713) and renamed the Villa Negroni. The villa remained in the possession of the Negroni family until 1784, when it was sold to the merchant Giuseppe Staderini.
While earlier periods of ownership saw occasional sales of sculpture from the Villa Montalto – notably the 1685 sale to Louis XIV of the so-called Cincinnatus (now recognized as a statue of Hermes fastening his sandal; Musée du Louvre, inv. nos. MR 238/N 276/Ma 83) – it was under Staderini that much of the remaining collection was dispersed. In 1785-1786, Staderini sold the sculpture collection en bloc to the noted British dealer and antiquarian Thomas Jenkins (1722-1798). (Staderini later sold the villa itself to Camillo Massimo, hence the modern compound name Villa Peretti Montalto-Negroni-Massimo; the villa was demolished in the 19th century to make way for Stazione Termini).
Described as the “greatest coup” of Jenkins’ extensive career in dealing ancient sculpture, these statues from the Villa Negroni rank amongst the most distinguished monuments of ancient and baroque art, now dispersed across museums and private collections worldwide (see p. 416 in B. Ford, “Thomas Jenkins: Banker, Dealer and Unofficial English Agent,” Apollo, June 1974). To ensure the approval of export to his international clientele, Jenkins sold choice works to Pope Pius VI for the expansion of the Vatican’s Museo Pio-Clementino, including the statues of Menander and Posidippus. To his international clients, Jenkins sold the aforementioned Neptune and Triton by Bernini to the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a number of works to Charles Townley, now in the British Museum, including the famed “Townley Caryatid” (inv. no. 1805,0703.44), a Roman relief showing the visit of Dionysos to the home of a mortal, formerly identified as Icarius (inv. no. 1805,0703.123), and a portrait bust of the Emperor Hadrian (inv. no. 1805,0703.94). For correspondence between Townley and Jenkins regarding ancient art from Villa Negroni, see pp. 171-172 in I. Bignamini and C. Hornsby, Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome, vol. II.
A drawing of this relief with its later restorations is preserved in the Townley Archive at the British Museum (inv. no. 2010,5006.1806), indicating that it was presented by Jenkins to Townley for possible purchase. A hand-written inscription below the drawing further establishes the relief's provenance: "Bas relief Negroni Villa bought by Jenkins." Although no correspondence concerning the relief survives, it can be surmised that Townley declined the acquisition but retained the drawing for his records. This was not the only instance in which Townley passed on an antiquity offered to him from the Villa Negroni: an over-lifesized Roman Marble Statue of Hadrian was likewise presented to him by Jenkins but ultimately sold to John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley (1767-1833). This statue, formerly in the Mougins Museum of Classical Art, was last sold at Christie's, New York, 29 October 2019, lot 1023.
It is not known to whom Jenkins ultimately sold this relief, but the dealer had clients throughout Europe, including Empress Catherine the Great (via her agent, General Shuvalov), Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff, Landgrave Friedrich II of Cassell, and the Comte d'Orsay, the latter being one of his few clients in France (see p. 25 in G. Vaughan, “Thomas Jenkins and his International Clientele,” in D. Boschung and H. von Hesberg, eds., Antikensammlungen des europäischen Adels im 18. Jahrhundert: Als Ausdruck einer europäischen Identität). The relief is next recorded by the great 19th century archaeologist Adolf Michaelis (1835-1910), who saw it at the Villa Faustina in Cannes in April 1893 and described it as a "large Roman sepulchral relief," noting such telling details as the ring on the man's finger and the wife's right hand resting on her husband's left arm. By the time Michaelis examined the relief, the modern additions to the heads had already been removed, indicating a campaign of restoration in the century between Jenkins' drawing and the archaeologist's account.
Michaelis’ encounter with the Villa Faustina was fortuitous. As he recalls (op. cit., p. 172):
During an unfortunately too short stay in Cannes, in April of this year, I noticed a "Villa Faustina" situated on the Promenade de la Croisette, whose gated entrance, in keeping with the expectations aroused by the villa's name, presented the appearance of a charming villa adorned, in the Italian fashion, with a great number of ancient fragments mostly embedded in the walls near the entrance… The villa, built and embellished apparently by a gentleman who in Italy had acquired a taste for such ornamentation and gathered the material to satisfy this inclination, belongs, as I was told, to Monsieur Valentin de Courcel, residing in Paris. With pleasure I took advantage of the kind permission granted by the current tenant to compile, in the brief span of little more than an hour allowed me, a summary inventory of those marbles—without my being able to vouch either for the perfect accuracy of every detail or for the completeness of the contents.
Recent research undertaken by M. Belzic suggests that Baron de Courcel (1838-1917) inherited the Villa Faustina and its collection through his wife, Angèle Mailand, the niece of the painter and collector Gustave Mailand (1810-1880), who may have originally built the villa and assembled its collection of ancient sculpture (see "Mystère sur la Croisette: Les reliefs de la Villa Faustina à Cannes: Les ventes d'antiques en France au XIXe siècle," online article, venteantique.hypotheses.org). A smaller relief with the goddess Leto from the Villa Faustina, most recently sold at Christie's, New York, 3 February 2026, appeared in the 1865 sale of James-Alexandre, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855), suggesting that the present relief may have been acquired around the same period – perhaps at auction in France, or, as Michaelis posits, in Italy. In the latter case, Jenkins may have sold the relief locally before it was dispatched to France during the great dispersal of ancient art that swept through Rome in the second half of the 19th century.
Notably, this relief is documented in a 1908 photograph of the Villa Faustina taken by the French microbiologist Jean Binot (1867-1909), where it is shown displayed outdoors in a garden-like setting facing a gated entrance. The relief is last recorded in 1923, when the collection of sculptures from the Villa Faustina was dispersed at auction in Cannes.
Within the small corpus of funerary reliefs depicting a husband and wife, this monument occupies a singular position. Of the three comparable examples recorded by Kleiner, none rivals the emotional depth or fine state of preservation of the present relief. It is at once a personal monument – a commemoration of love, marriage, and unity that still resonates two millennia after its creation – and an outwardly public one – a monument to citizenship that captures the very essence of what it means to be a free Roman. The relief also illustrates, with unusual clarity, the journeys undertaken by ancient art across centuries of modern collecting. Lost to scholarship for a century after its 1923 dispersal, it now reemerges with its lineage substantially reconstructed, ready to take its place once again as an important document of funerary art at the birth of the Roman Empire.
Nearly life-sized in scale and superbly sculpted in high relief, this rediscovered funerary monument bears witness to the commemorative traditions of the late Republic and early Imperial periods in Rome. Beyond its ancient context, it also serves as an important document in the history of collecting and the dispersal of ancient sculpture across Italy and Europe during the Renaissance and Grand Tour eras.
The relief depicts a man and woman standing frontally, with the woman to the right, her hand resting on the man’s left wrist, a gesture identifying the pair as husband and wife. The man wears the most characteristic of Roman garments, the toga, over a tunic. It is draped over his left shoulder with a thick gathering of cloth positioned diagonally over his chest, which he clutches with his left hand. On his left ring finger, he wears a ring with a raised bezel. The woman is dressed in a long, finely pleated tunic, secured at the waist with a cord and fastened with buttons along the upper right arm, over which a palla is draped from her left shoulder. Mortises along the edges and to areas of the drapery indicate that the relief was once completed with now‑missing restorations, likely from the 17th or 18th century.
In both style and scale, this relief belongs to a small but well-defined group of funerary reliefs from Rome, most comprehensively studied by D.E.E. Kleiner (Roman Group Portraiture: The Funerary Reliefs of the Late Republic and Early Empire) and V. Kockel (Porträtreliefs stadtrömischer Grabbauten). As both authors demonstrate, such reliefs were commissioned by former slaves to assert the pair’s legitimacy as free Roman citizens. The affectionate gesture of the woman placing her hand upon the man’s wrist can be viewed as a modified version of the dextrarum iunctio, the clasping of hands that functioned as a symbol of marriage and a mark of citizenship. As Kleiner notes, “Some slaves were allowed to marry, but these were considered quasi-marriages and often were not recognized either by the masters or the state. When these slaves were freed, however, their new family was legitimized and it was this legitimacy that they were, in a sense commemorating” (op. cit., p. 18). The toga likewise reinforces the idea of Roman citizenship. As Kockel explains, “this garment was of outstanding importance and accordingly carried a strong ideological charge…the depiction of liberti [freedmen] in the toga served to underscore their new status as Roman citizens and…proclaimed this status intelligibly to all through dress alone” (op. cit., p. 15).
Reliefs of this type – encompassing both full-length and bust-length depictions of the deceased – date almost exclusively to the late Republican and early Augustan periods, with only a few known from the Julio-Claudian and Flavian eras and the 2nd century (Kleiner, op. cit., p. 6). They were almost always found in Rome and its immediate environs, including sites along the Via Appia and Via Tiburtina, as well as Ostia. As Kockel observes (op. cit., p. 7), these reliefs were "not set up as independent monuments in open spaces like grave altars or stelae," but instead functioned as architectural elements, integrated into the façades or interiors of tombs. The absence of framing around the figures was intended to provide the illusion of free-standing statuary, a more costly and exclusive art form.
Full-length portraits presenting only husband and wife together, such as this example, are exceedingly rare, with Kleiner (op. cit., pp. 201-203, nos. 11-13) recording only three other known examples: two in the Capitoline Museums, Palazzo dei Conservatori and one in the Museo Nazionale, Chiostro di Michelangelo. Whereas two of these reliefs show the man and woman standing apart, only the poorly preserved example in the Museo Nazionale shows the couple in dextrarum iunctio (inv. no. 774; see pp. 118-119, no. V, 1 in A. Giuliano, ed., Museo Nazionale Romano: Le Sculture, vol. 1, pt. 3), thus further emphasizing the importance of the present relief. The affectionate gesture of the woman placing her hand on the man’s wrist is perhaps best paralleled by the bust-length example of a husband and wife, now in the Vatican Museums and formerly in the collection of Alessandro de' Medici (inv. no. 592; see Kockel, op. cit., cat. no. L19). The comparatively simple toga worn by the man, without the complex sinus (the loose overfold slung from beneath the left arm), can also be observed on the fragmentary relief with a man and child, now in the Museo Nazionale, Giardino dei Cinquecento (inv. no. 994; see Kockel, op. cit., cat. no. O27).
FROM ROME TO CANNES: THE EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY OF A ROMAN MARBLE FUNERARY RELIEF
This relief has a remarkable modern history, one that connects Renaissance and Grand Tour era Rome to 19th and 20th century France. It can first be identified in an inventory and related drawings of the Palazzo Peretti alle Terme compiled circa 1623–1631, where it is described as "Doi figure insieme, Un console colla moglie di basso rillieuo, p.mi 7" ("Two figures together, a consul with his wife, in low relief, 7 palmi"; for the inventory, see pp. 21-51 in M.G. Barberini, op. cit. V. Massimo (op. cit.) also makes reference to the present relief in his history of the villa, but the author is not specific about what inventory he draws from, although he notes the presence of 1655 and 1696 listings of the collection). While the inventory was previously thought to be dated to circa 1680-1685, more recent research undertaken by A. Seidel has argued for the earlier date; see n. 8 in “The Peretti Montalto Collection of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Sculptures: Bernini, Giambologna, and Beyond,” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, vol. 43, pp. 181-217). According to the inventory, the relief was displayed on the staircase of the palazzo’s piano nobile. As 7 palmi corresponds to approximately 156 cm. – slightly larger than the relief's present dimensions – it is likely that restorations to the heads and lower edge were in place when the inventory was taken.
Originally built by Cardinal Felice Peretti (1521-1590), later Pope Sixtus V, the Palazzo Peretti alle Terme formed part of the Villa Montalto complex (also known as the Villa Peretti Montalto), the largest Renaissance villa ever to stand within Rome's walls. As M. Sapelli (pp. 141-143 in “Le Antichità della Villa di Sisto V presso le Terme di Diocleziano: Consistenza e Fasi Successive,” Bollettino dei Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie, vol. XVI) and Barberini (op. cit., pp. 15-18) recount, after a series of land purchases near the Baths of Diocletian from 1576-1578, Cardinal Peretti commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to design a palace on the grounds in 1580, which was known as the Casino Felice. In 1585, the Cardinal’s sister, Camilla Peretti (1519-1605), came into possession of adjoining land, upon which Fontana built another structure, the imposing Palazzo alle Terme, also variably known as the Palazzo Peretti, Palazzo Peretti alle Terme, or Palazzo a Termini. This larger palace served the increased needs of Sixtus’ papal court. The Villa Montalto was further enhanced with lush gardens and enclosed by a large perimeter wall punctuated by six monumental gates.
At the same time, Cardinal Peretti began amassing a sizable collection of ancient sculpture for his new villa. As the site had been occupied by aristocratic residences during the Roman Imperial era, finds uncovered during construction were likely incorporated into the collection (see Sapelli, op. cit., p. 143). Cardinal Peretti also purchased sculptures from other local sources, such as the 1st century A.D. statues of the playwrights Menander and Posidippus (the “Two Consuls”), now in the Vatican, which were discovered in the vineyard of San Lorenzo in Panisperna.
Given the lack of documentary evidence before the circa 1623-1631 inventory discovered by Barberini, it is impossible to know when this relief entered the collection of the Villa Montalto and whether it was directly acquired by Pope Sixtus V or by later owners of the complex. Indeed, Pope Sixtus' nephews and heirs, Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di Montalto (1571-1623) and Prince Michele Damasceni Peretti (1577-1631), also greatly expanded the collection with both ancient and contemporary sculpture (see, for example, Bernini's Neptune and Triton, 1622-1623, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. A.18:1-1950), which served as the centerpiece of a large fishpond with elaborate fountains on the property). It therefore seems likely that if the relief was not acquired by Pope Sixtus himself, it entered the collection during Alessandro and Michele's ownership.
After Michele’s death in 1631, the villa passed to his daughter, Maria Felice Peretti (1603-1650), and her husband, Bernardino Savelli (1606-1658), thus bringing Peretti ownership to an end. Following their deaths, the villa and its contents were inherited by their son Giulio (1626-1712). Mounting debts, however, forced him to declare bankruptcy, and in 1696 the villa and its contents were sold at public auction to the Genoese Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Negroni (1629-1713) and renamed the Villa Negroni. The villa remained in the possession of the Negroni family until 1784, when it was sold to the merchant Giuseppe Staderini.
While earlier periods of ownership saw occasional sales of sculpture from the Villa Montalto – notably the 1685 sale to Louis XIV of the so-called Cincinnatus (now recognized as a statue of Hermes fastening his sandal; Musée du Louvre, inv. nos. MR 238/N 276/Ma 83) – it was under Staderini that much of the remaining collection was dispersed. In 1785-1786, Staderini sold the sculpture collection en bloc to the noted British dealer and antiquarian Thomas Jenkins (1722-1798). (Staderini later sold the villa itself to Camillo Massimo, hence the modern compound name Villa Peretti Montalto-Negroni-Massimo; the villa was demolished in the 19th century to make way for Stazione Termini).
Described as the “greatest coup” of Jenkins’ extensive career in dealing ancient sculpture, these statues from the Villa Negroni rank amongst the most distinguished monuments of ancient and baroque art, now dispersed across museums and private collections worldwide (see p. 416 in B. Ford, “Thomas Jenkins: Banker, Dealer and Unofficial English Agent,” Apollo, June 1974). To ensure the approval of export to his international clientele, Jenkins sold choice works to Pope Pius VI for the expansion of the Vatican’s Museo Pio-Clementino, including the statues of Menander and Posidippus. To his international clients, Jenkins sold the aforementioned Neptune and Triton by Bernini to the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a number of works to Charles Townley, now in the British Museum, including the famed “Townley Caryatid” (inv. no. 1805,0703.44), a Roman relief showing the visit of Dionysos to the home of a mortal, formerly identified as Icarius (inv. no. 1805,0703.123), and a portrait bust of the Emperor Hadrian (inv. no. 1805,0703.94). For correspondence between Townley and Jenkins regarding ancient art from Villa Negroni, see pp. 171-172 in I. Bignamini and C. Hornsby, Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome, vol. II.
A drawing of this relief with its later restorations is preserved in the Townley Archive at the British Museum (inv. no. 2010,5006.1806), indicating that it was presented by Jenkins to Townley for possible purchase. A hand-written inscription below the drawing further establishes the relief's provenance: "Bas relief Negroni Villa bought by Jenkins." Although no correspondence concerning the relief survives, it can be surmised that Townley declined the acquisition but retained the drawing for his records. This was not the only instance in which Townley passed on an antiquity offered to him from the Villa Negroni: an over-lifesized Roman Marble Statue of Hadrian was likewise presented to him by Jenkins but ultimately sold to John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley (1767-1833). This statue, formerly in the Mougins Museum of Classical Art, was last sold at Christie's, New York, 29 October 2019, lot 1023.
It is not known to whom Jenkins ultimately sold this relief, but the dealer had clients throughout Europe, including Empress Catherine the Great (via her agent, General Shuvalov), Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff, Landgrave Friedrich II of Cassell, and the Comte d'Orsay, the latter being one of his few clients in France (see p. 25 in G. Vaughan, “Thomas Jenkins and his International Clientele,” in D. Boschung and H. von Hesberg, eds., Antikensammlungen des europäischen Adels im 18. Jahrhundert: Als Ausdruck einer europäischen Identität). The relief is next recorded by the great 19th century archaeologist Adolf Michaelis (1835-1910), who saw it at the Villa Faustina in Cannes in April 1893 and described it as a "large Roman sepulchral relief," noting such telling details as the ring on the man's finger and the wife's right hand resting on her husband's left arm. By the time Michaelis examined the relief, the modern additions to the heads had already been removed, indicating a campaign of restoration in the century between Jenkins' drawing and the archaeologist's account.
Michaelis’ encounter with the Villa Faustina was fortuitous. As he recalls (op. cit., p. 172):
During an unfortunately too short stay in Cannes, in April of this year, I noticed a "Villa Faustina" situated on the Promenade de la Croisette, whose gated entrance, in keeping with the expectations aroused by the villa's name, presented the appearance of a charming villa adorned, in the Italian fashion, with a great number of ancient fragments mostly embedded in the walls near the entrance… The villa, built and embellished apparently by a gentleman who in Italy had acquired a taste for such ornamentation and gathered the material to satisfy this inclination, belongs, as I was told, to Monsieur Valentin de Courcel, residing in Paris. With pleasure I took advantage of the kind permission granted by the current tenant to compile, in the brief span of little more than an hour allowed me, a summary inventory of those marbles—without my being able to vouch either for the perfect accuracy of every detail or for the completeness of the contents.
Recent research undertaken by M. Belzic suggests that Baron de Courcel (1838-1917) inherited the Villa Faustina and its collection through his wife, Angèle Mailand, the niece of the painter and collector Gustave Mailand (1810-1880), who may have originally built the villa and assembled its collection of ancient sculpture (see "Mystère sur la Croisette: Les reliefs de la Villa Faustina à Cannes: Les ventes d'antiques en France au XIXe siècle," online article, venteantique.hypotheses.org). A smaller relief with the goddess Leto from the Villa Faustina, most recently sold at Christie's, New York, 3 February 2026, appeared in the 1865 sale of James-Alexandre, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855), suggesting that the present relief may have been acquired around the same period – perhaps at auction in France, or, as Michaelis posits, in Italy. In the latter case, Jenkins may have sold the relief locally before it was dispatched to France during the great dispersal of ancient art that swept through Rome in the second half of the 19th century.
Notably, this relief is documented in a 1908 photograph of the Villa Faustina taken by the French microbiologist Jean Binot (1867-1909), where it is shown displayed outdoors in a garden-like setting facing a gated entrance. The relief is last recorded in 1923, when the collection of sculptures from the Villa Faustina was dispersed at auction in Cannes.
Within the small corpus of funerary reliefs depicting a husband and wife, this monument occupies a singular position. Of the three comparable examples recorded by Kleiner, none rivals the emotional depth or fine state of preservation of the present relief. It is at once a personal monument – a commemoration of love, marriage, and unity that still resonates two millennia after its creation – and an outwardly public one – a monument to citizenship that captures the very essence of what it means to be a free Roman. The relief also illustrates, with unusual clarity, the journeys undertaken by ancient art across centuries of modern collecting. Lost to scholarship for a century after its 1923 dispersal, it now reemerges with its lineage substantially reconstructed, ready to take its place once again as an important document of funerary art at the birth of the Roman Empire.