Covent Garden Theatre frieze, Ancient drama

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In 1809, Robert Smirke commissioned John Flaxman to create two stone friezes for the façade of the Covent Garden Theatre, a site now occupied by the Royal Opera House. Four reliefs, which are replicas of those friezes, show characters associated with both Ancient and Modern theatre. One relief features Aristophanes, a renowned Greek dramatist, while another depicts William Shakespeare, England's most celebrated playwright. These sculptures were among the first works of British art to be directly inspired by the Parthenon marbles, which Lord Elgin had brought back from Athens in 1807 and displayed at his home after they arrived in Britain, where today they reside in the British Museum.