In Francesco Righetti's 1794 catalogue 'Aux amateurs de l'Antiquité et des Beaux Arts', the present bronze is described as 'Lucius Papirus dit Praetextat de la Villa Ludovisi', and was available at a cost of 35 zecchini (Haskell and Penny, op. cit., p. 343). It is a reduction of a marble group, then in the Ludovisi Collection and now in the Museo Nazionale delle Termi (Haskell and Penny, loc. cit.) which was associated with the story of Papirus and his mother as recorded in Aulus Gellius's Attic Nights. Various other explanations of the subject were proposed, among the most plausible being Winkelmann's suggestion that the figures might represent Orestes and Electra.