Page 51 - Beholding Liberty!

I.1.10
Edward Dodwell, Esq. F.S.A. and member of several foreign academies. A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece,
during the Years 1801, 1805, and 1806.
In two volumes. Vol. I.
London: Printed for Rodwell and Martin, New Bond-Street. 1819.
Library of the Hellenic Parliament
THE IRISH PAINTER and antiquarian Ed- ward Dodwell (1767-1832) travelled to the Ionian Islands and the Troad region in 1801, together with William Gell [cat. no Ι.1.5]. In 1805 and 1806 he sys- tematically toured central Greece and the Pelopon- nese, and secondarily Thessaly, with Simone Pomar- di (1760-1830), also an artist, on whose drawings the illustrations in this book are based. Pomardi pub- lished his own, more lavishly illustrated Viaggio nella Grecia one year later (Rome 1820). This edition of Dodwell was also published in a German translation in 1821-22.
Here is depicted (in a drawing by Dodwell engraved by Charles Heath) a characteristic scene of two
peasants resting next to a colossal marble lion, in the north-eastern foothills of Mount Hymettus, in Attica. Dodwell meticulously depicted both ancient and modern Greece, and his work is one of the most authoritative travel accounts. Of particular interest are his original and well-documented views on the Greek cultural continuity [cf. no I.1.1], arguing for Greeks as direct descendants of their glorious an- cestors – an approach with a purely philhellenic bias.
During the same period, Dodwell also produced im- pressive views of Greece in coloured lithographs (aquatints), published shortly afterwards in the al- bum Views in Greece, from Drawings (London, Rod- well and Martin, 1821) [cf. cat. nos I.1.19-20].
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