In a letter dated May 1987 from the artist, he described this painting as being composed of imaginary fragments of architecture, fountains, gargoyles and other classical ‘fauna’ all placed in the later afternoon sun. When I had been in Rome (Stahl had been a Rome Scholar at the British School in Rome) several years before, I had come across similar real arrangements in fields off the Via Appia Antica. This painting, as with many others I was working on at the time, was about the memory and delight in finding images in stone and frescoes from 2000 years ago. The playfulness of Roman Art was appealing and also the fact that these remnants of such an old and dead civilisation could still communicate so vitally.

Cries & Whispers New Works for the British Council Collection, The British Council 1988