An Emperor on Horseback

These reliefs copy part of the so-called 'Barberini diptych', an ivory relief of the first half of the 6th century, now in the Louvre in Paris. The reliefs belong to a group of forgeries of Early Christian and Byzantine Ivories, all carved from bone, which appear to have emanated from Milan in the second half of the nineteenth century. In style, facture and choice of material the two plaques clearly relate to a small group of forgeries identified by Eric Maclagan and attributed by him to a Milanese faker in the first quarter of the 19th century.

The Barberini diptych leaf was in the Barberini collection in Rome between about 1625 and 1899, but a number of errors and changes in the 19th century copy suggests that the forger was not working from the original.