Page 254 - Beholding Liberty!
P. 254
254 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
In the frieze of the Hall of the Trophies
a succession of depictions brings to the fore the diplomatic interventions in the Greek issue – an expected choice, given that
the content of the monumental ensemble was put together as a commission of the Bavarian king Ludwig I to his fellow Bavarian sculptor and court artist Ludwig Michael
von Schwanthaler.
The first depicted episode is the signature
of the Treaty of London (24 June/6 July 1827): although after the fall of the Acropolis the Greek Revolution had essentially been confined to certain spots of the Peloponnese and the islands of the Argosaronic Gulf,
the “three protective powers” (England, France, Russia), urged by the British Prime Minister, George Canning, decide the pacification of Greece, proposing to Sultan Mahmud II the granting of autonomy to the Greeks with payment of dependency tribute. The country to gain autonomy was defined
as «the Classical Greece», by which the European plenipotentiaries meant
the Peloponnese, the Cyclades, Attica, with
a small hinterland to the west, and Euboea.
