© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University

ClassificationsWorks of Art on Paper

View of Athens and the Acropolis

Dateca. 1870

Credit LineGift of William Knight Zewadski

Dimensions8 7/16 x 10 11/16 in. (21.4 x 27.2 cm)

Object number1990.010.166

Label TextThe Acropolis, the "high city," is a freestanding rock that rises about 250 feet above the Attic plain. Its natural defenses and the availability of water made the site desirable as a citadel and dwelling place. It has been continuously inhabited since Neolithic times, ca. 5000 BC. By the early sixth century BC it had become a sanctuary sacred to the goddess Athena. In 480 BC the Persians invaded Athens, and the Acropolis was overrun, its temples, dedications, and sculptures all destroyed and burned. The monuments now visible on its summit are the remnants of a grand building scheme begun in the middle of the fifth century BC under the statesman Perikles, after the defeat of Persia and the rise of Athens to empire. From left to right on the summit are the Erechtheion, the Parthenon, the Propylaia, and the small temple of Athena Nike, all constructed between 447 and 404 BC in white marble quarried from Mount Pentelicon northeast of Athens. The dark tower just to the left of the temple of Athena Nike is the so-called Frankish Tower, built by a Florentine family, the Acciaiuoli, who ruled as Dukes of Athens from the late fourteenth century until the Ottoman conquest in 1458.
Exhibition HistoryThe Eye of Greece: Athens in Nineteenth-Century Photographs, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 25 - November 24, 2004
In Search of Noble Marbles: The Earliest Travelers to Greece, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 14 - April 9, 2017

ProvenanceEx coll. William Knight Zewadski, United States.

Status

Not on view

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