In search of Classical Greece : travel drawings of Edward Dodwell and Simone Pomardi 1805–1806

Delightful exhibition at the British Museum of drawings by Edward Dodwell and Simone Pomardi made on a trip to Greece in 1805-06.  

When Napoleon’s activities in Europe stopped the Grand Tour people turned to Greece instead. Dodwell and Pomardi were interested in the ruins and remains but they also seemed to like the contrast with Greek life at the time and show the buildings as they were then not reimagined.  

The exhibition also included a mock-up of a panorama they painted on canvas on their return to England which was displayed in a rotunda on the Strand in 1818.  

Having just been to a lecture on neo-classical art of the early 19th century these fitted in really well to that idea and I would have been interested to know a bit more about whether the pictures had been used as source material for other works.

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