ATTRIBUTED TO BENEDETTO BOSCHETTI (ITALIAN, 1820-1870), AN MODEL OF A ROMAN FLUTED SARCOPHAGUS MID 19TH CENTURY Depicted with a pair of lions, in Rosso Antico marble 12cm high, 24cm wide Provenance: The Simon Neal Collection Ancient Roman sarcophagi were popular objects among Grand Tourists and so small-scale models of them, carved in coloured marbles, were made by artisans in Rome to cater for such a demand. This exquisite model of an ancient Roman sarcophagus is decorated with fluted carving and flanked by a pair of pacing lions with their paws resting on spheres - no doubt inspired by the ancient sculpture known as 'The Medici Lion', which resided at the Villa Medici in Rome in the 16th century, before being moved to the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence in the 18th century. Since the 2nd century A.D., marble sarcophagi were widely used throughout the Roman empire for burials of distinguished people. The iconography depicted on such sarcophagi were generally the same as those chosen to decorate homes and public spaces, but they acquired different meanings when viewed in a funerary context. Scholars are divided on whether sarcophagi images are highly symbolic of Roman religious beliefs and conceptions about death and the afterlife or reflect a love of classical culture that was intended to elevate the status of the deceased or were simply conventional decorative motifs.