an ancient doggy kiss

Somewhere under the soil of the place the natives called "Dog Mountain," this sweet marble pair of hounds waited to see the light again.

They were created by a Roman sculptor, possibly in the 2nd century AD. Found in the Italian region of Lazio around 1774 by the Scottish painter and excavator Gavin Hamilton. He sold them in 1774 to Charles Townley. Townley collected Greco-Roman work in the days when one could still conceivably and affordably do this, and it's his collection that the British Museum bough after his death in 1805 to form the core of their holdings in those eras.

None of which has anything to do with two elegant marble greyhounds sitting close together as dogs do, one giving the other's ear a love nibble. See them and sigh.