© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University

ClassificationsWorks of Art on Paper

Temple of Olympian Zeus

Dateafter 1875

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. William Knight Zewadski

Dimensions8 3/16 x 10 3/16 in. (20.8 x 25.8 cm)

Object number1991.012.062

Label TextThe construction of this temple, the largest in mainland Greece, was a long and complicated affair. It was originally designed in the Doric order under the patronage of the Peisistratid tyrants in the sixth century BC. When the family was driven into exile, work on the temple ceased until 174 BC, when Antiochus Epiphanes, a wealthy Syrian prince and an admirer of Athens and its monuments, undertook the project with the help of the Roman architect Cossutius. The temple was redesigned in the Corinthian order, but work again stopped when Antiochus died. The temple, with its 104 columns, was not completed until the reign of the emperor Hadrian, another admirer of Athens and all things Greek. Hadrian dedicated the temple and its gold and ivory statue of Zeus in 132 AD, over six hundred years after it was first begun.
Exhibition HistoryThe Eye of Greece: Athens in Nineteenth-Century Photographs, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 25 - November 24, 2004

ProvenanceEx coll. William Knight Zewadski, United States.

Status

Not on view

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