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| William Chambers Charles Townley's residence at 7 Park Street, London 1794 watercolor British Museum |
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| William Chambers Charles Townley's residence at 7 Park Street, London 1794 watercolor British Museum |
Charles Townley (1737-1805) was only one of many rich Londoners who filled his house with ancient statues toward the end of the 18th century. England's economic and political power vastly outweighed any comparable power in depressed and disunited Italy. With the British Empire booming, its rulers and perpetrators became actively keen to identify themselves with Imperial Romans. "Antique marbles" became wildly fashionable and widely available, helped along by the entrepreneurial excavations of English speculators in and around Rome. These dodgy characters spent half their time in hasty digging and the other half bribing local officials in order to keep and export the finds. Today there is a large collection of ephemera at the British Museum from the correspondence between dealers in Rome and buyers in London, including many idealized drawings and prints of the often very questionable objects for sale.
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| William Skelton Charles Townley's Calling Card with Antique Busts ca. 1778-1848 etching British Museum |
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| Anonymous artist Townley Venus ca. 1775-1805 drawing British Museum |
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| Anonymous artist Townley Venus ca. 1775-1805 drawing British Museum |
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| Anonymous artist Townley Venus ca. 1775-1805 drawing British Museum |
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| Anonymous artist Bust of Hadrian ca. 1768-1805 drawing British Museum |
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| Anonymous artist Head from an antique statue of Nero ca. 1768-1805 drawing British Museum |
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| Vincenzo Dolcibene Discobolus 1792 drawing British Museum |
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| Vincenzo Dolcibene Discobolus arm ca. 1768-1805 drawing British Museum |
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| attributed to Gavin Hamilton Antique statue of sleeping-nymph ca. 1774-77 drawing British Museum |
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| after Pier Leone Ghezzi Statuette of Venus ca.1720 etching British Museum |
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| John Brown Head from an antique statue of a Gaul ca. 1786 drawing British Museum |
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| John Brown Antique sculpture of an eagle ca. 1786 drawing British Museum |
In 2010 a two-volume study of this squalid trade-arrangement was published by Yale University Press – Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome by Ilaria Bignamini and Clare Hornsby.