Louis-François Cassas

Private Collection, Athens

The present work describes with great ethnographic and architectural detail a baptism next to the Gate of Persecution in Ephesus, once an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia in Turkey. The Greek family, accompanied by two orthodox priests in the centre of the painting embody the Greek insistence on practicing their religion and retaining their heritage despite the Ottoman oppression, represented by the five armed guards.

While the most notable aspect of this work is the fine detail in which the figures and architecture are rendered, and the delicate colouration of the misty land and townscape in the background, the setting of the Gate of Persecution is a potent symbol. Ephesus is still an important Christian archaeological site, as one of the seven churches of Asia cited in the Book of Revelation, the one-time home of Saint Paul, and the possible location for the writing of the Gospel of John. The frieze on the Romano-Hellenistic Gate of Persecution was thought to depict the sufferings of early Christians, and while this was later proven otherwise, in the present work the analogy remains.

While this work pre-dates the Greek War of Independence, a late 18^th and early 19^th century revival in classicism and a wave of European sympathy for the Greek plight surely inspired this subject. In addition, Cassas' background as an archaeologist, architect and antiquary, in addition to his work as a celebrated landscape artist and sculptor, explains the appeal of this examination of classical architecture for the artist.

In 1784 Cassas accompanied the French ambassador, Count Choiseul-Gouffier, throughout Turkey, producing images for the Count's renowned book on the country. Cassas' first-hand experience of this region, and his 1787 voyage to Greece, yielded meticulously-rendered subjects imbued with emotion, moving the poet Goethe to state that they were 'a pleasure to see'.