Charles Townley, a wealthy country squire, took his first grand tour of Europe in 1767 to purchase works of art, returning to Italy in 1771. The year before, Pope Clement XIV had founded the Clementine Museum and was purchasing marbles for the new sculpture gallery. Roman families also were allowed to sell less important works of art abroad, which Clement XI had prohibited. Too, the Scottish painter and archaeologist Gavin Hamilton was undertaking a series of excavations and made items available to Townley
The painting by Johan Zoffany of Charles Townley and his friends in his library at Park Street, Westminster (1782) brings together the major pieces in the collection (over forty are represented). The Discobolus, which was added later, after the picture was exhibited in 1790, was Townley's last major purchase. Above it is his first, two boys quarreling over a game of knuckle bones. There also is a cupid, satyr and nymph, bust of Homer, Clytie, the Townley Vase, Townley Venus, and Townley Sphinx. On his death in 1805, the collection was acquired by the British Museum for £20,000, twice what Townley had spent on his marbles. The same year, the last of the Elgin marbles were removed from Greece. Soon, they would completely overshadow Townley's acquisitions, most of which were recognized to be later Roman copies. In 1816, the Elgin marbles were purchased by the Museum and the Townley collection eventually relegated to the basement.
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"The heart that has truly loved, never forgets, Thomas Moore |
Townley's favorite sculpture and the one he took with him when he was forced to flee his home during the anti-Catholic riots of 1780 was the so-called Clytie, a Roman bust dating about AD 40-50 and acquired during his second visit to Italy. Called Isis by Townley, himself, who imagined her to be in the calyx of a lotus, the image may represent Antonia the Younger, daughter of Mark Antony and mother of the emperor Claudius. Known as the Clytie because of its petaled base, the figure is named after the forlorn nymph in Ovid's Metamorphoses (IV.371ff) for whom "Excess of love begot excess of grief." Seduced by Apollo, she was transformed into a sunflower, her head always turned toward the god as he moved across the sky. |
Reference: "Zoffany's Painting of Charles Towneley's Library in Park Street" (1964), The Burlington Magazine, 106(736), 316-321, 323; "The Celebrated Connoisseur: Charles Townley, 1737-1805" (2005) by Tony Kitto, Minerva 16(3), 13-15.
