Given by Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) to Queen Isabel II of Spain, it reproduces the so-called Flaminian Obelisk in the centre of the Piazza del Popolo in Rome. Its attribution remains uncertain; it may have been made in the circle of the sculptor and mosaicist Benedetto Boschetti, who made high quality souvenirs in the mid-nineteenth century and was awarded a medal at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.