 Various 18th-century sources reported that Louis XIV of France had been prepared to offer the equivalent of £4000 in the previous century.An early 16th-century drawing of the subject by the architect and antiquarian Pirro Ligorio was seen among the papers of Rascas de Bagarris recorded by Jacob Spon.The gem was carefully drawn by Theodorus Netscher and engraved by Bernard Picart for Philipp von Stosch's "Gemmae antiquae caelatae" (1724) which placed its magnified image in the hands of all Europe's antiquarians and rendered it part of the visual repertory of "milordi" on the Grand Tour, who knew it from its illustration added to the 1728 French edition of the Jonathan Richardsons' (Senior and Junior) "Account...", published in French as "Traité de la Peinture et de la Sculpture..." Amsterdam, 1728; in the 18th century the English could be counted on to pay top prices for outstanding carved hardstones of assured antiquity.