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r o m a n , c. 1800 The Capitoline Lions White marble, set on granito antico marble bases 17.5 cm high; 9.5 cm wide; 32.5 cm long
u p o n a p p r oac h i n g t h e s t e p s leading up to the Capitoline Hill, visitors on their Grand Tour would have been met by two black basalt recumbent lions that were part of the fountains located at each end of the stairway. Originally placed in the ancient Roman Temple of Isis and Serapis, or Iseum Campense, in the Campus Martius, the lions were then incorporated into the site of the church of Santo Stefano del Cacco (erected on the ruins of the temple), where they remained until 1562, when Pope Pius IV (1499–1565) donated them to the people of Rome, and they were moved to the Capitol. Imposing and elegantly modelled, the lions would certainly have caught the eye of passers-by and foreign travellers such as the influential collector and designer Thomas Hope (1769–1831), who decorated a settee for the famous Egyptian Room at his home on Duchess Street, London, with four lions of identical form (see T. Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807, pl. VIII).