17th Pair of Medallion Profiles Yellow Antique Marble

Pair of medallions depicting Agrippina and Faustina, Rome, 17th century.

Rare and important reliefs in veined yellow antique marble from Numidia applied on striped alabaster from Villa Palombara-Rome.

The representation, inspired by antiquity, is to be placed in that profane and celebratory production of classical figures and allegorical of their virtues, linked to that cultured and refined collecting that flourished in the Renaissance humanist culture and was also widespread in the Baroque era. In ancient Rome, portraiture was a true cult that was expressed through marble busts and medallions, exhibited in series in family galleries, placing ancestors next to younger members to perpetuate the memory and family virtues.

The extremely refined workmanship, the small size, the precious materials and the extreme quality place them at the beginning of the 17th century, very close to the Renaissance productions.
On the back an old inscription designates them as the portraits of Agrippina the Elder and Faustina. Agrippina the Elder, daughter of the emperor Augustus and wife of Germanicus, with whom she had Caligula, was a Roman noblewoman, belonging to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Annia Galeria Faustina, better known as Faustina the Minor, was a Roman empress, wife of the emperor Marcus Aurelius and mother of Commodus.
The alabaster of Villa Palombara is a flowered alabaster whose name derives from some findings made in the archaeological excavations of Villa Palombara, near Rome. The ancient yellow marble of Numidia, used in Roman times, came from the quarries of the ancient city of Simitthus, now Tunisia; exported to Italy, it was widely used for wall coverings, colonnades and floors. The quarries were exhausted around the 3rd century, so much so that subsequent artefacts were made from materials recovered from the ruins.

Measure
H cm 12
W cm 9
D cm 1