The Triumphal Procession Carrying the Spoils from the Temple of Jerusalem

This terracotta is modeled after a marble relief on the inside of the Arch of Titus, in Rome. It shows soldiers carrying sacred trophies looted from the Temple of Jerusalem while they proceed through a triumphal arch, just as actual soldiers would have entered the Arch of Titus en route to Vespasian’s Temple of Peace in the Forum. A masterpiece of Roman art from the first century CE, the arch was much admired and copied, and its sculptures served as models for artists who came to the Eternal City to study its ancient monuments. Although it is difficult to attribute the large numbers of copies that were produced in the late eighteenth century to specific artists, this relief has been associated with Jean-Guillaume Moitte, a French sculptor who first came to the French Academy in Rome in 1771, and who made an impressive number of drawings and small terracottas of the city’s ancient treasures.