Entablature III (C.140) is among the most chromatically warm works in Roy Lichtenstein's Entablature Series — gold and amber tones dominating the picture, the architectural ornament rendered in a palette that recalled the gilded ceilings of neoclassical interiors rather than the stone exteriors from which the series had drawn its source photographs. A collaged gold metallic band ran through the centre of the horizontal composition, its reflective surface catching the light and introducing an optical variability that screenprint alone could not achieve.

The shift from exterior to interior associations was significant. Where earlier works had evoked the civic façade — the bank or courthouse seen from the street — Entablature III (C.140) suggested the ceremonial interior: the courthouse chamber, the bank hall, the institutional space in which classical decoration was deployed at its most elaborate. Lichtenstein was examining the full range of contexts in which this ornamental tradition appeared, from the street-level architectural detail to the richly appointed interior.

The Entablature prints were among the most technically complex works in his print catalogue. The combination of screenprint, collage, and embossing produced pictures of considerable material layering — objects as much as images, their physical construction as carefully considered as their content. Entablature III (C.140) was the work in which the warm palette and the metallic collage combined most successfully, the gold tones of the print and the reflective surface of the collage reinforcing each other to produce an image of unusual richness.

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