The Campana reliefs take their name from Marchese G. Campana, a nineteenth-century collector who owned a large number of similar Roman terracotta reliefs. The reliefs were produced from the middle of the first century BC until the first half of the second century AD. Unknown quantities of copies from moulds existed and served as decoration for public and private buildings. As most classical sculptures, the friezes were originally polychromed, with traces of pigment remaining in some examples.
Sir Daniel Donohue and his wife, Countess Bernadine, amassed an extensive collection of antiquities, works of art, furniture, and paintings, during the 1950s and 1960s. The collection had been started more than a century beforehand by the Countess’s father, Daniel Murphy, and subsequently housed in California, across three Italian and French styled residences (including the famous Villa San Giuseppe estate in Los Angeles). Countess Bernardine died in March 1968, with the majority of the collection formed prior to her death. Bernardine was made a Papal Countess by Pope John XXIII in recognition of her generosity, after she established the Dan Murphy Foundation in honour of her father. After her death, Sir Daniel continued her charitable works, and donated the Villa San Giuseppe to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
For a cast of the original frieze, Museum August Kestne, item 604974
For a similar Campana relief fragment, Museum August Kestne, item 604970
