Pen on paper, mounted

11.6 cm. by 26 cm.

Inscribed lower left “Temple of Jupiter, Olympius [sic], Athens”

Inscribed lower right “T.H. Cromek f. 1846”

Cromek spent most of the years between 1831 and 1849 in Italy and Greece drawing and painting the monuments and landscapes of these regions.

The view depicted is from the foot of the Acropolis towards Piraeus with the remains of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, a temple started in the sixth century BCE but not completed until 131 AD in the reign of Hadrian. In 86 AD, two columns from the then unfinished temple were taken to Rome by Emperor Sulla and included in the building of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill.

In the early 1800s, an ascetic monk, a Stylite or pillar-saint, made a home on top of a section of these columns. The remains of his hermitage is visible in Cromek’s drawing. In 1852, the centre of the three columns standing apart from the main cluster of remains was blown down by strong winds.

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