Shakespeare’s Juliet said, “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” and in those few words she summed up the universal sentiment of romantic love throughout time.
In ancient Greece, one Corinthian maiden must have felt such sorrow when her loved one was about to leave. According to the ancient Roman author Pliny the Elder, she traced the shadow of her beloved as he slept. Upon seeing the outline, her father, the potter Butades of Sicyon, built up a portrait of his daughter’s beloved by pressing clay onto the wall, creating the first clay model portrait, a bas-relief sculpture.
