Lot 99
A Rare and Important Three-Piece Grand Tour Garniture, early 19th c., unusually fine and large, meticulously cut in giallo di Siena marble, on very good nero belgio marble plinths, representing the Ruins of the Temple of the Heavenly Twins, Castor and Pollux; the Temple of Vespian, inscribed "[R]estitver"; and the Column of Phocas, the base extensively engraved with an inscription discovered in 1813, height 18 3/4 in., 18 1/2 in., and 21 3/4 in.
PLEASE NOTE: The three Antique monuments represented in this superb group are the most prominent surviving elements at the west end of the Roman Forum. The Temple of Castor and Pollux was an early Imperial construction particularly noted for the splendid intricacy of its Corinthian capitals; the corner elements represent the temple that was dedicated to Vespasian and Titus in the later first century; and the Column, originally dedicated to Diocletian at the end of the second century, was reconfigured in AD 608 as a memorial to the Byzantine emperor Phocas, whose brief reign (he died in 610) is remembered chiefly for his donation of the Pantheon in Rome to Pope Boniface IV. The memorial column, surmounted by its dazzling gilded figure, was the last monument dedicated in the Roman Forum.
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