- Museum number
- 1805,0703.13
- Description
-
Marble figure of a young girl, possibly a nymph of Artemis.
- Production date
- 1stC-2ndC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 63.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Traditionally identified as one of pair playing knucklebones, probably adapted from a figure seated on a sea-shore or river-bank. Restored in the 18th century by the Italian sculptor Angellini.
-
Cook 2013, nr. 34:
Townley's description; ‘A cumbent figure of Diana, with close drapery, resting on her left hand, and advancing the right. upon the plinth is the bow, with heads of Griffins at the ends of it. It was found in the Villa Verospi, near the Salara gate of Rome, the site of the magnificent gardens of Salust’ (TY 12/3, park drawing room 17). The sculpture is also described by Townley as a ‘fountain nymph’ (Bodleian Ms Add D 71 fo. 369) {ch}. It was called‘Britomartis’ by d’Hancarville (TY 16/27).
Found with this statue was a similar one that was bought by Count Wallmoden and is now in Hanover. Townley gives the date of discovery as 1764 in TY 10/8 and The first Townely Inventory, and as 1766 in Bodleian Ms Add D 71 (fo. 63 v), but October 1765 is claimed in Die Skulpturen der Sammlung Wallmoden (Goettingen 1971), 46.
The head, hands and feet were restored by Angellini (Bodleian Ms Add D 71 fo. 369).
Bought from Jenkins in 1768 for £70 (TY 10/2; TY 10/3, fo. 15; TY 10/5-7; ST 1, fo. 12r). The statue is listed in TY 10/1, but the price in Scudi is not stated.
Drawings:
* Townley drawing 2010,5006.31, annotated ‘Matz del.’.
* Zoffany: B. F. Cook, `The Townley Marbles in Westminster and Bloomsbury', The British Museum Yearbook, 2 (1977), 36-37, figs. 19-20, no. 2.
Date:
Klassizistisch (Lippold). Profile of plinth characteristic of mid-II AD (Martinez on 329, no. 129, copy from Wallmoden coll., now in Göttingen). Letters from Winckelmann to Moltke show that they were known by Nov/Dec 1765, pace Cavaceppi ‘found May 1776’ (Martinez).
Bibliography:
- Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (1808) III.28.
- Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, II, pl. 28.
- A Guide to the Graeco-Roman Sculptures in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum) (2 vols., London 1874 [2nd ed. 1879] and 1876), I, no. 196.
- A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Vol. III (London 1904), 80-2, no. 1710.
- G. Lippold, Die griechische Plastik (Handbuch der Archäologie III.1, Munich 1950), 347, note 1.
- D’après l’antique (Exhibition Catalogue, Paris 2000-2001), 324, fig. 2 [Jean-Luc Martinez].
- Location
- On display (G2/od/pl1)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2007, Mar-Jun, Beijing, Palace Museum, Britain meets the World
2009-2010, 11 Dec-10 May, Madrid, Canal de Isabel II, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2014 Oct 14 - London, BM, G2, 'Collecting the World'
- Acquisition date
- 1805
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1805,0703.13