This is one of 28 anonymous panels, painted around 1490-1500, which originally decorated the ceiling of a Lombard palace. They represent profile heads and coats of arms, enclosed within decorative borders. The heads repeat three generalised types with minor variations: seven of young women with Lombard hair styles facing left, six of young men wearing bonnets facing right, six Roman emperors within roundels facing left, as in this panel, and four facing right. Such decorative panels decorated the leading edges of the wooden joists which supported the flat, grid-like ceilings in the principal rooms of fifteenth century Lombard palaces.

The identifiable arms are those of the North Italian noble families of Vimercati and Malatesta. It is likely that these panels were commissioned to commemorate the wedding of Francesco Vimercati of Crema to a lady of the Malatesta family , which probably occurred sometime after 1487. Vimecati had a distinguished career as a Podesta, or principal magistrate, in several major North Italian cities, including Mantua, Reggio Emilia, Lucca and Florence. The location of his residence is unknown, but as two palaces of other members of Vimercati family in Crema have similar ceilings, it is likely that it was also in his native city of Crema, near Milan.