Two Antique Busts

John Miller (Johann Sebastian Müller) was born in Germany but spent the majority of his professional career as an engraver in England. Although he specialised in botanical prints, he contributed to a number of publications on antiquity. This is a plate from Marmora Oxoniensia (1763) a guidebook to the ancient sculptures collected by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel in the early 17th century. The collection was the first of its kind in England. The book presented the collection in a series of etched images, often with two or three different sculptures illustrated on the same page, with titles and notes published separately in an index. This etching was originally accompanied by an illustration of another unrelated, unnamed female classical bust. A 1763 review said the book ensured that ‘various fragments of our own antiquities have been all united together’.

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