Frieze, Istrian stone, porphyry, carved in relief, monsters, mitre, shield of arms

Strip of decorative carving, Isrian stone, inlaid with porphyry and green marble. The strip is framed at the top and bottom by a moulded border, and is carved (left) with two wolf-headed dragons each with an eagle standing on its body, and (right) with two dolphins, with tails intertwined. The background of the reliefs is roughened. In the centre is a circular green marble disc set in a moulded frame, and at the ends are moulded frames containing shields surmounted by a bishop's mitre and charged with three eight-pointed etoiles on a bend, with two of the same in chief and two in base.
Left edge broken and repaired and lower left border cracked. Some make-up in the frame of the central medallion and elsewhere.

Purchased from the Cavendish-Bentinck collection (£7) Listed in MS. Inventory of the Cavendish-Bentinck collection as No. 124 Pope-Hennessy suggests that like other items in the Cavendish-Bentinck collection, this relief was probably bought in Venice.

Historical significance: This panel is inlaid with porphyry and green marble. Coloured stones such as these were valued and utilised during the Renaissance largely due to their associations with antiquity. One way in which the Emperors of Rome and their families had signified their status and difference from others was through the use of the colour purple. Porphyry was much prized as a result of its purple colour. Access to the material, which originated in the mountains of the Egyptian desert, was controlled by the emperors who owned and operated, most of the quarries. Once extracted the stone was used to line the walls and floors of interiors and was sometimes used for figure sculpture, usually personifications of Rome or statues of the emperors. The scarcity of the material and the difficulty in carving it, added an aura of luxury to porphyry. The imperial associations of both purple and porphyry would be exploited over hundreds of years and were used in the Renaissance to conjure ideas of wealth, power and authority.

The imagery which appears on the frieze as well as the materials employed in its make-up combine to form an assertively classical piece of sculpture. The animals and monsters carved within the borders of the relief have their roots in the ancient world. Dolphins appear in many different media from the Greek and Roman worlds, where they were closely associated with nautical myths and especially the nereids - sea nymphs, the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris. The Satyr and Centaurs seen on the companion panels were well known in Renaissance Italy both from depictions in Roman art and descriptions in surviving texts of ancient myths. The Centaur was sometimes used allegoricaly: in the Platonic world view, revived in Renaissance Italy, they could be used to represent Reason mediating in the conflict between body and spirit - such as is seen in Botticelli’s Minerva and a Centaur (c. 1482–3; Florence, Uffizi).

This strip of relief, together with two others in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, appears to have originated from a free-standing tomb. The present panel, the shortest of the three, would have adorned one end of the tomb, while the two other panels (mus. no. 1839A&B-1892) would have decorated the long sides. The type of tomb from which they come is similar to the monument to Girolamo Della Torre and his son Marc-Antonio (d 1506 and 1511 respectively), in S Fermo Maggiore, Verona. The Della Torre tomb was of a specifically humanist form, with no overtly Christian iconography and sculpted by the Paduan Andrea Riccio (1470-1532).

The arms surmounted by a bishop's mitre that appear twice on this shortest section of frieze are those of Paolo Zabarella (1471-1525). Zabarella was a member of the monastery of the Eremitani at Padua, and in 1497 was appointed Vicar-General of the Order throughout Italy, becoming successively titular Bishop of Argos, titular Archbishop of Parium and suffragan (assistant bishop) to the Bishop of Padua. He was responsible in 1520 for building the second cloister of the Eremitani and was buried in the Ovetari Chapel in a free-standing tomb decorated with inlaid marble.

These three strips of relief appear to have originated from the long sides and one end of a free-standing tomb similar in type to Riccio's Della Torre monument in Verona. The coat of arms, surmounted by a bishop's mitre that appear twice on the short section are those of Paolo Zabarella (1471-1525), who was a member of the monastery of the Eremitani at Padua and became Bishop of Argos and Archbsihop of Parium. Zabarella was responsible in 1520 for building the second cloister of the Eremitani monastery in Padua and was buried in the Ovetari Chapel in a free-standing tomb decorated with inlaid marble.

1839-1892