A Marble Urn and Lid ("The Stowe Sarcophagus") , Rome, circa A.D. 1770-1780

Said to have been found on the road from Rome to Tivoli;

George Nugent Temple Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham (1753-1813), Stowe, Buckinghamshire, acquired in Rome;

By descent to Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1797–1861) (Christie's, Stowe, August 21st, 1848, lot 745);

Purnell B. Purnell, Stanscombe Park, Gloucestershire (Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, May 8th, 1872, no. 550);

Sotheby's, New York, June 8th, 2011, lot 48, illus.;

Where acquired by the present collector.

J. Seeley, Stowe. A Description of the House and Gardens of the Most Noble and Puissant Prince, George Grenville Nugent Temple, Marquis of Buckingham, London, 1798, p. 55;

J. Dallaway, Anecdotes of the Arts in England, London, 1800, p. 383;

J. Britton, The Beauties of England and Wales, or, Delineations, topographical, historical, and descriptive, of each county, vol. I, London, 1801, p. 321;

Stowe, 1798, p. 54;

D. Hughson, London; being an accurate history and description of the British metropolis and its neighbourhood, vol. 4, London, 1807, p. 528;

Stowe. A Description of the House and Gardens of the Most Noble Richard Grenville Nugent Chandos Temple, Duke of Buckingham & Chandos, London, 1832, p. 43;

G. Lipscomb, The History and Antiquities of the County of Buckinghamshire, vol. 3, London, 1847, p. 89;

H. R. Forster, The Stowe Catalogue Priced and Annotated, London, 1848, p. 47, lot no. 745, engraving between pp. 174 and 175;

CIL VI 3157: E. Borman, G. Henzen, and Chr. Huelsen, Inscriptiones falsae urbis romae (Corpus inscriptionum latinarum, vol. VI, part V), Berlin, 1885, p. 244, no. 3517 (for the inscription)

Country Life, vol. 183, 1989, p. 224, illus. (coadestone cast);

A. Kelly, "Eleanor Coade at Stowe", The Georgian Group Journal, vol. 2, 1992, p. 98;

A. Kelly, Mrs. Coade's Stone, Upton-upon-Severn, 1997, p. 69;

Sotheby's, London, November 29th, 2002, no. 10, illus. (coadestone cast).

The present urn was long considered to be one of the most important antiquities in the collections of the Dukes of Buckingham before their dispersal in 1848. In fact, the "Stowe Sarcophagus" is one of the most ambitious pseudo-antiques ever produced by late 18th-century Roman sculptors/restorers's workshops for their English clientele. The 1847 engraving and the coadestone cast show that the urn originally rested on a highly ornate marble base typical of Piranesi's production. The present wood base follows the same proportions. 

The 1798 description of Stowe by J. Seeley specifies that "the covering to it is a mattress, upon which lies a snake, and a human figure of very capital workmanship is reclining in the folds of it." There is reason to believe that the reclining and now missing figure in question was ancient and much prized, and that the entire "sarcophagus" was created as an elaborate and refined setting or mise-en-scène for its display, all in the taste of the antique. The mattress-shaped lid, for instance, is a miniature version of those depicted on monumental Roman kline sarcophagi. The same type of hybrid creation, a funerary altar-like shrine for the display of an ancient marble statuette, probably of Herakles, was sold at Sotheby's, London, July 5th, 2022, lot 195 (documented as by Piranesi).