Adventus Augusti: A Drawing Attributed to Giovanni Antonio da Brescia

Extract

The drawing (reproduced on Plate XXXV.) to which I give this title and attribution was acquired for the British Museum from a private source in 1911, and is of particular interest from its relation to one of the sculptured panels which decorate the attic of the Arch at Constantine at Rome. The series to which this relief belongs has been fully and learnedly discussed by Mr. Stuart Jones (following Petersen and others) in Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. iii. pp. 251–268. Mr. Stuart Jones maintains, and may be regarded, I conceive, as having fairly established, the view that these reliefs were originally executed as part of a monument raised in celebration of the German and Sarmatian victories of Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 174, and that eight panels were removed thence by Constantine to decorate his own triumphal arch, where they remain in situ to this day, while three others of the same series are also extant in the Palazzo dei Conservatori.