From: Baths of Caracalla, Rome
RA Collection: Art
On free display in The Dorfman Architecture Court
The cast seems to reproduces a composite capital which probably comes from the Baths of Caracalla, though the original capital can no longer be located.
The excavations of the Baths, as those of the Palatine Hill, were funded by the Farnese and were highly visible. The Baths were known to antiquarians and artists as early as the 1500s and in 1546 Pope Paul III Farnese began a large-scale excavation.
The Royal Academy's acquisition of this and others from the Farnese excavations at the Palatine remains unclear.
820 mm x 960 mm x 510 mm, Weight: 111 kg