Château d'Écouen museum displays works of some of the most celebrated goldsmiths and silversmiths of the Renaissance. One notable example is the statuette of [[Daphne]] by [[Wenzel Jamnitzer]], a German craftsman from [[Nuremberg]], and the goldsmith to the Holy Roman emperors. It was made between 1569 and 1576. It depicts the Greek mythological story of [[Apollo and Daphne]] from the "Metamorphoses" of [[Ovid]], which was a popular subject in the Renaissance. The nymph Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree by her father, to protect her from the pursuit of [[Apollo]]. The statuette is made of gilded silver, with branches made of
Acantha Acantha Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, English translation: "thorny") is often claimed to be a minor character in Greek mythology whose metamorphosis was the origin of the "Acanthus" plant. The tale goes that Acantha was a nymph loved by the god Apollo. Acantha however rebuffed Apollo's advances and scratched his face. As a result, Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves. The story has, over the years, been retold in books, encyclopedias, and journals. Compilers have, however, often omitted reference to classical sources. For instance the first edition of John Lemprière's "Bibliotheca Classica", an early encyclopaedia of