William James Müller British, 1812-1845

Sir James Watts, Abbey Hall, Manchester
 

British Institution, 1845, no. 140
International Exhibition, 1862

"When Landing in Rhodes, we behold for the first time the fortress which so long formed the impregnable outwork of Latin Christianity in the East, and which, though shattered by cannon and earthquakes, still presents to us one of the noblest and most instructive specimens of military architecture in the fifteenth century... So absorbing indeed is the charm of this first impression, so completely does it fill our imagination, that we forget for a while the interest which belongs to Rhodes as the site of one of the great marine republics of the ancient world, a city celebrated not less for the wisdom of its institutions than for the beauty of its architecture, the perfection of its ports and arsenals, and the strength of its defences by sea and land." (Charles Thomas Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, 1865).

A watercolour by Müller of the same view but without the figures in the foreground, dated 1838 and inscribed The Pasha's Palace Rhodes, is in the collection of the Museum of the City of Athens (see fig. 1).