Twee piëdestallen met festoenen 1636 - 1647

Gabriel Ladame created this print of two pedestals with festoons some time in the 17th century. They present a symbolic language of ancient Roman funerary art. The pedestals themselves would have served as bases for sculpture in a garden or mausoleum. The artist has adorned them with ram's heads, garlands, and dedicatory inscriptions to the Manes, or ancestral spirits. The image reflects the period's interest in classicism, a phenomenon driven by the collections of antiquities in the Vatican museums. The Catholic Church was a major player in the art market, dictating taste through its patronage of the arts. Ladame's print engages with this dynamic. To understand how this imagery would have been received by its early modern audience, we might consult emblem books and treatises on garden design to recover the meanings of its visual codes.