"Clytie" was the second picture of that title painted by Leighton. The nymph Clytie falls in love with Apollo the sun god but is rejected by him. She takes up a position in a remote spot and remains there neither eating nor drinking and drawing her only nourishment from her tears. Day after day she watches her former lover drive his chariot from east to west across the sky. Her hair becomes wild, her flesh pale except where it is still warmed by the sun’s rays. Eventually she becomes rooted to the ground, her limbs and body turn into the stem of a plant and her face becomes a sunflower which forever after follows Apollo as he makes his daily journey across the sky. Leighton began his second version in 1895. He explained the picture to a visitor shortly before his death: ‘I have shown the goddess in adoration before the setting sun, whose last rays are permeating her whole being. With upraised arms she is entreating her beloved one not to forsake her'.