Page 69 - Beholding Liberty!

PERISTYLE
I.1.19
Edward Dodwell (1767-1832)
The Propylaea of the Acropolis in Athens, ca. 1819
handcoloured aquatint, 31.5 × 43 cm
signed: Printed by C. Hullmandel. (bottom right)
inscribed: Plate 10 (top right)
Scale of 10 feet / WEST FRONT of the GREAT GATE of the PROPYLEA at ATHENS. (low centre) Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, inv. n. 178
I.1.20
Edward Dodwell (1767-1832) Ancient sepulchre near Delphi, ca. 1819
handcoloured aquatint, 30 × 42 cm
signed: Printed by C. Hullmandel. (bottom right) inscribed: Plate. 36. (top right)
ANCIENT SEPULCHRE near DELPHI (low centre) Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, inv. n. 100
THE IRISH PAINTER and antiquarian Ed- ward Dodwell, during his many travels in Greece (1801, 1805, 1806), accounts of which he published in the two-volume A Classical and Topographical Tour Through Greece (1819) [cat no Ι.1.10], depicted the Greek world, its monuments and inhabitants in scores of watercolours, which he later lithographed in colour (aquatints). Printed by the London litho- graphic press of Charles Joseph Hullmandel (1789- 1850), they were published as loose engravings from 1819 onwards. A selection of 30 views were assembled in an exquisitely designed album, Views in Greece, from Drawings (London, Rodwell and Mar- tin, 1821) – a first-class example of an artist’s gaze
in travel literature about Greece. Dodwell’s views are dominated by an antiquarian approach, focusing on ancient remains.
Though half-buried, the Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis [cat. no I.1.9] dominate the centre of the composition. Below the epistyle and next to the Doric columns, two typical figures of Athenians con- verse; in the background, the masonry of humble Ot- toman annexes to the Acropolis can be seen.
Near ancient Delphi – which were not excavated be- fore the late nineteenth century – a European anti- quarian examines the architectural remains of an ancient tomb [cat. no I.1.20]; in the foreground, an armed Greek observes, rather awkwardly, other ruins.
THE AWAKENING OF HELLENISM From Archaeoloatry to Philhellenism 69