This panel was described in the AB inventory of the Museum (1837) as, simply, 'Bas Relief of a Landscape and Figures - Terracotta'. Close inspection has shown that the material is not terracotta but rather some kind of hard, heavy substance, either ceramic or some kind of artificial stone. It is possible that it is a cast from a terracotta made in a particularly heavy plaster. John Summerson (Curator 1945-84) titled it 'Landscape with Pan and an ape': it depicts a wooded landscape with, in the middle foreground, an ape with her young on her back, crouched at the foot of an antique flower-filled vase on a pedestal. On the left is a fountain with water pouring from it into a large cistern. On the right a half-ruined tower with foliage sprouting from the facade and growing out of the top. In the middle back-ground is a mountain, at the summit of which is seated a God-like figure, playing the syrinx or pan pipes. NB The young ape and the stream of water from the fountain have been broken off. Summerson concluded that it 'appears to have been adapted from some painting or engraving'. The Pan-like figure appears to be modelled on the central figure in Poussin's painting Polyphème (1649) in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. An engraving by Étienne Baudet after Poussin was published in Paris 1701.

We are grateful to Dr. Henry Keazor of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, for drawing our attention to the possible Poussin connection.