Smith, Arthur H. [Hrsg.]; British Museum <London> / Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities [Hrsg.]: Catalogue of sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (Band 1) (London, 1892)

INTRODUCTION.

5

Alexandria, in 1800, were placed in the Department of
Antiquities, in 1802.

The collection of sculpture which had thus slowly come
into existence during the first fifty years of the Museum's
history, received its most brilliant accessions during the
first quarter of the present century.

The great collection that had been formed by Charles
Townley 1 was purchased in 1805 by Act of Parliament,
45 Geo. III. cap. 127, for £20,000, a sum greatly below
the value of the sculptures. Charles Townley (1737-
1805), of Townley, in Lancashire, acquired a large part of
his marbles, during a residence in Italy, between 1768 and
1772, but continued collecting, after his return to England.
The chief sources from which he formed his museum were
the following: (1) the older Eoman collections, from
which Townley made numerous pm-chases ; (2) the ex-
cavations carried on by Gavin Hamilton, a Scotch painter
living in Borne (died 1797), and by Thomas Jenkins, an
English banker; (3) occasional purchases frum older
English collections. Thus the relief of Exakestes2 was
derived from the collection of Dr. Biehard Mead (see
above). The relief of Xanthippos3 had been brought to
England by Dr. Anthony Askew, a physician, who visited
Athens and the East, about 1747, and compiled a manu-
script volume of inscriptions, now in the British Museum
(Burney MSS., No. 402). Several pieces4 were also ob-
tained from the collection formed at Wimbledon by Lyde
Browne, a virtuoso and Director of the Bank of England,
who died in 1787.

1 There is a bust of Townley in the Department of Antiquities.

1 Xo. 704. 3 No. 628.

* Mus. Marbles, III., pi. G ; X., pis. 3, 5; XI., pi. 37.