Although Flaxman was commissioned by George IV to produce designs for the decoration of Buckingham Palace which was being redesigned by John Nash, Flaxman died in 1826 before the work was finished and some of his designs for the scheme were never executed. Other designs for the scheme (both executed and unexecuted) are in the Royal Collection (eg. RCIN 923234) and in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. This sheet shows two designs for friezes - one showing victories and the other depicting Mercury and Pandora. The sheet is numbered ‘9’ at the top right-hand corner and seems to have been detached at some point from a sketch book. The designs are resolved but not rendered in detail – the principal purpose of the sheet is to detail the sizes of the panels to be produced.

According to David Bindman, the representation of Mercury and Pandora was one of Flaxman’s favourite subjects and, as is typical in his work, he returned to it repeatedly throughout his career. The scene shows Mercury, on Zeus’s orders, carrying Pandora to Epimetheus, where she will open the box that unleashes suffering into the world.

Flaxman’s first treatment of it was a plaster bas relief, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1805 (the original is now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen), and subsequently reproduced as one of Flaxman’s illustrations to Hesiod’s Works and Days (1817).

Flaxman’s depiction of Mercury and Pandora became tremendously popular and was reproduced in plaster, cameos, medals and prints, including one by William Fry, after Flaxman, an example of which is in the V&A collection (DYCE.3116).

The other design on the sheet show two winged victories holding a wreath above a crown. The sheet is inscribed with measurements for the panels that were evidently intended to be produced in two sizes, for use in two different locations.