Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé

Private collection, Athens

The canvas has an old relining. There is a small old c-shape repair in the sky along the centre left edge and a pattern of craquelure throughout the composition, notably in the sky and in the lower right corner, with some associated small spots of flaking. Some spots of paint rubbing are also visible along the framing edges, the surface is quite dirty and would no doubt be transformed through cleaning and restoration. Ultra-violet light reveals areas which fluoresce more opaquely along the framing edges, suggesting the work has been reframed in the past, and spots of retouching in the aforementioned repair and above the acropolis. The work is presented in a narrow gilt frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Painted in 1804 when Turpin de Crissé was just twenty two, this monumental view of the Temple of Jupiter with the Acropolis beyond affords a fascinating glimpse of Athens at the dawn of the nineteenth century, at that time still under Turkish rule. Turpin de Crissé first travelled to Greece under the patronage of the French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, a Philhellene whose account of his travels to Greece in 1776, Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce, published in 1782, found a wide audience and gave expression to the Philhellenic cause that ultimately led the Greek War of Independence. Indeed, the present work may well have been commissioned by Choiseul-Gouffier himself, as it predates Turpin’s Salon debut of 1806 and therefore his rise to fame as an artist. Turpin returned to Paris as the protégé of Hortense de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepdaughter and future Queen of Holland, and was welcomed into Napoleon’s court, becoming Chamberlain to the Empress Josephine in 1809. As a ‘membre libre’ of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, he continued to travel widely and to devote himself to the study of landscape and antiquity.

The colossal Temple of Jupiter, also known as the Olympieion or Columns of the Olympian Zeus today stands in the centre of the Greek capital. Construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenians, who envisaged building the greatest temple in the ancient world, but it was not completed until the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD some 638 years after the project had begun. During the Roman periods it was renowned as the largest temple in Greece and housed one of the largest cult statues in the ancient world. The temple's glory was short-lived, as it fell into disuse after being pillaged in an invasion in the 3rd century AD. In the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, it was extensively quarried for building materials to supply building projects elsewhere in the city. Despite this, a substantial part of the temple remains today.