The Chiaramonti Niobid

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These two gods undertake to punish Niobe for offending their mother and they kill all of Niobe's children with arrows, Apollo killing the males and Artemis killing the females. This figure is probably a copy from the age of Hadrian which was perhaps part of a group sculpture featuring all of the Niobids. Different versions of this group are known, all of which are copies of a group dating from the Hellenistic period, the most complete of which is to be found in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence. This work was found around the middle of the 1500s at Hadrian's Villa near Tivoli during the excavations organised by Cardinal Ippolito d'Este