This fragment is probably the top member of a Roman cornice, with a series of rather straggly honeysuckle flower patterns with linked bottom leaves above a bead and reel moulding. There is a fragment of the same cornice in the Museo Chiaramonti of the Vatican¹. It is probably from a tomb monument and can be dated very early in the post-Augustan period when this type of bead and reel was common. There are very good parallels for this style of cyma enrichment. An earlier, monumental use of a form of this decorative motive can be seen in the cresting-strip of the cornice of the lower order of the Basilica Aemilia, as re-erected near the Via Dell'Imperio entrance to the Foro Romano². For similar work (flowered palmette patterns from a circular tomb) compare the frieze-moulding of the circular tomb from Vicovaro as re-erected in the Lateran Museum³.

The linked, honeysuckle-palmette architectural enrichment developed in a colossal and more complex manner can be seen on a frieze from the Basilica Ulpia area (now lying against the wall of the South Side of the Foro Traiano; compare also the altered derivation in the Lateran⁴). This, with several other motives, including the stopped striation enrichment shows the carrying over of first century decorative designs to the early second century, whereas the capitals of the Foro Traiano already look ahead, in their experimentation with composite motives⁵, to the Hadrianic villa period. The Hellenic antecedents of this imperial decorative motive may be judged by comparison with a cyma block from the Apollo temple at Phigaleia⁶.

This piece was in Soane's collection by c.1825-26 when it appears in a watercolour capriccio of objects from the collection Vol.82_75.

¹ No. 23; 2034, Amelung, VC, I, nos. 612a (632), pl. 78.
² Romanelli, The Roman Forum, p. 67, fig. 6.
³ Arch. Anz., 1935, co. 342; NB the contents of the Lateran Museum have been, since 1970, transferred to the Vatican.
⁴ Gusman, AD, I, pl. 22.
⁵ On the architectural decoration of the Foro Traiano, Leon, Trajansforum, 1971, especially on the capitals pp. 50-59.
⁶ Acta Archaeologica (Copenhagen), VII, 2-3, 1936, p.232, no.6, fig. 4.

Presumably from Rome (see below).

Vol 82/75, watercolour showing this item