Not known

[early seventeenth-century hand] 27 [Mount] 158 [x2]

• 1625/35
  Date range: 1625/35)

[Drawing] Pen and dark brown ink and grey and grey-brown wash over ?graphite; on laid paper (231x163mm), rounded corners at right, inlaid (window on verso of mount) [Verso] Blank [Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart [Verso of mount] Window (224x155mm)

Seventeenth-Century Hand 1 (Codex Ursinianus Copyist)

[Drawing] None [Mount] Fleur-de-lys in circle topped with crown (variant 3; cut at bottom of window)

Shown in this seventeenth-century insertion into the codex is a part of a frieze featuring a horned and winged lion protome raising its right paw (missing) to rest on a vase, half of which is depicted. The drawing does not correspond precisely with any known ancient frieze, and it may have been based on an earlier depiction that was in part reconstructed or invented. It differs, for example, from the frieze of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina in the Roman Forum, which also has winged lions, but they have four legs and alternate with candelabra. The winged lion itself is similar, as Campbell noted, to one in a frieze fragment thought to be from the Temple of Trajan (Vatican Museum, Museo Gregoriano Profano, inv. 9648; Packer 1997, 1, pp. 339–40; Campbell 2004), although it again has four legs and it is paired with a protome eros figure rather than a vase. The discrepancy could perhaps be explained by the fragmentary state of the frieze which has been reassembled from several elements. The drawing could thus have been based on an earlier reconstruction of the frieze involving, say, part of the lion and the lion’s leg with a small piece of acanthus attached to it, in an overall composition similar to that of the Temple of Antoninus frieze. Another possibility is that it represents part of the frieze associated with Basilica Ulpia (Paris, Louvre; see Packer 1997, 1, p. 336; Nicotra 2015, pp. 86–91) which has winged animals (with four legs) facing vases, although in this case the animals are gryphons.

Ashby 1904, p. 73
Campbell 2004, 2, pp. 654–55
Census, ID 47175

Drawing

Digitisation of the Codex Coner has been made possible through the generosity of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, Berlin.

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