Frieze with Eros and Garland

Roman art

This relief depicts a winged Eros moving to the right, legs spread one in front of the other and floating in air. The two ends of the lavish festoon overflowing with fruit are held up by ribbons, while the small figure supports it in the middle on his bent head.

The panel, which was described in 1650 and 1700 as walled into the facade of the theatre in the garden’s second enclosure, was depicted intact, in an engraving by Piranesi in 1778. It became part of the decoration of the Salone when the Palazzina was rehung following the sale of the antiquities collection to Napoleon in 1807.

It is a fragment of a sarcophagus that was decorated with figures of garland-bearing cupids datable to the Hadrianic age and inspired by Hellenistic models.

Object details

Commentary

In 1650, the relief was reported by Manilli in the garden’s second enclosure, walled into the facade of the Theatre: ‘it is sculpted with a winged putto that holds up two festoons of fruit’ (p. 153). In 1700, Montelatici confirmed the same location and provided a more accurate description: ‘a winged putto, holding a festoon of fruit on his shoulders’ (p. 88). In 1778, it was depicted in an engraving by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in a better state of preservation than it is in today. In Piranesi’s print, the upper edge is complete, whereas now portions of it are clearly missing (Ficacci 2000, p. 620, no. 814).

When the collection was reorganised following the sale to Napoleon in 1807, the sculpture must have been altered in order to adapt it to its new use as an overdoor in the Salone.

The panel depicts a winged Eros supporting a lavish garland of fruit held up by ribbons. The small, floating figure is shown in profile, turned to the right, his legs spread one in front of the other in what looks like a dance step. His arms are raised to hold the heavy festoon supported on his bent head. The ends of the festoons are held up by two attached circles decorated with a bow with long fluttering ends. The ancient part of the relief is the central portion up to the middle of the festoons; the rest is a modern restoration.

The panel was originally part of a sarcophagus decorated with garland-bearing cupids. This iconographic motif was popular during the Hellenistic period, and the Borghese exemplar is a refined Hadrianic copy of a model from that time.  There is a similar relief that was originally in the Borghese Collection and is now in the Louvre (Ma 306: Herdejürgen 1996, pl. 44, 1, no. 53). According to Herdejürgen, the sculpture is a Baroque reformulation of ancient motifs. Moreno took this view into consideration and also provided a close stylistic analysis of the work (1997, pp. 494–495; Moreno, Viacava 2003, pp. 135–136, no. 101).

Giulia Ciccarello