![]() The marble is probably Parian, and if so it must have been quarried in antiquity, since the underground quarries were not again worked until the nineteenth century. Several scholars have since claimed 'Clytie' as an eighteenth-century rococo work. Jucker's publication of the bust in 1961, enthusiastically endorsing a Claudian date, was much criticised. It is difficult to reconcile the subject's sensual appearance with its modern identification as the younger Antonia (36 BC-AD 38), daughter of Mark Antony and mother of the Emperor Claudius. The name, if inaccurate, is suitably romantic. Purchased in Naples in 1772 from the Principe di Laurenzano, and known as 'Clytie' after the nymph turned into a flower for unrequited love of the sun-god Helios, this bust became Townley's favourite sculpture it was the only marble he took with him when forced to flee his house during the Gordon Riots of 1780. ![]()
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