A rectangular white marble bas relief depicting a Roman marriage with three figures at full-length, a man to the left whose extended hand holds that of a woman on the right and another male figure standing in the background, with drapery beyond.

Made for the decoration of the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace, placed high above the large marble fireplace, this low relief depicting a Roman marriage scene is based on a Roman marble relief at Palazzo Sacchetti in Rome. It was sculpted by the Flemish artist Michael Rysbrack c. 1722 and this was his first royal commission. Rysbrack never visited Rome but he would have known the Sacchetti relief from engravings after the original, like those made by the Italian artist Pietro Santi Bartoli in the late seventeenth century.

The Cupola Room is one of the three rooms that George I commissioned the architect William Kent to design and build at Kensington Palace. Kent and Rysbrack worked together in multiple projects for the royal family and the aristocracy. They continued to enjoy royal patronage after the death of George I, and both became Queen Caroline’s, consort of George II, favourite artists.