[Drawn by A. Arrowsmith?]
[London: Elizabeth Stuart, 1794.]
Engraved map with aquatint. 530 x 370mm, 21 x 14½".
Map of the Greek island of Delos, published in the 'Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece' by James 'Athenian' Stuart & Nicholas Revett. Delos had been the meeting place of the Delian League, a defensive group of Greek city states founded in 477BC but eventually overwhelmed and turned into the Athenian Empire by 454BC. Stuart (1713–88) and Revett (1720–1804) joined Gavin Hamillton and Matthew Brettingham on a Grand Tour of Italy, the Balkans & Greece between 1748-55. On their return they started work on the 'Antiquities', which was the first accurate survey of the surviving classical buildings of Athens, with the first volume published in 1762, the second 1789, third 1794, fourth 1816 and fifth 1830 (nearly 80 years after the first). The work was incredibly influential, fueling the Greek revivalist style in 18th-century English architecture. The attention to detail was such that it attracted the attention of Hogarth, who satirised the work with his 'Five Orders of Periwig'. This map was published in Volume 4; the general map of Attica in the same volume was signed by Arrowsmith. The hatchuring of elevated regions has been aquatinted, an uncommon usage.
[Ref: 26786]  £140.00