alte kunst old masters köln 19. nov. 2011 lempertz auktion 987

LANCELOT THÉODORE COMTE
DE TURPIN DE CRISSÉ
1782 Paris – 1859 Paris
1423 THE ACROPOLIS IN ATHENS
Signed and dated: T. Turpin 1804.
Oil on canvas (relined).
110,5 x 161,5 cm.
The present painting of the Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis at
Athens shows the possibly best known architectural monument of
Greek antiquity, which after its troubled history, still exists in part today.
As a temple for the city‘s goddess Pallas Athena the construction ordered
by Pericles was begun in 447 B.C. In an unusually short construction
time the monumental temple could already be completed in 438,
while the elaborate decoration took until 433 B.C. at least. For nearly
one thousand years the Parthenon remained almost completely intact.
Beginning in the mid-fifth century when the temple was being changed
into a Christian church, the first alterations that took place were the
a ddition of an apsis and the removal of the interior pillars. With the
conversion into a mosque after the conquest of Athens by the Osman
rulers in 1456, a minaret was added. However, the most severe catastrophe
in the history of the Acropolis was the explosion of the Osman
gunpowder storage inside the Parthenon on September 26, 1687,
causing the entire roof to collapse and seriously damage the building,
which has not been in use since that time.
The originals of the elaborate marble sculptures from the Parthenon‘s
interior and exterior are now in the recently opened Acropolis Museum,
in the Louvre and in Copenhagen. A major part of the architectural
sculpture has been kept in the British Museum in London since the
early 19th century. They are the famous „Elgin Marbles“, brought by
Lord Elgin (Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine)
to Great Britain between 1801 and 1804, as British Ambassador to
Constantinople and with permission of the Sultan, among them almost
half of the surrounding frieze and 14 of the 92 Metope reliefs.
Our painting shows the Parthenon still with the original Elgin Marbles
that were removed only a short time before. The painting would be one
of the last views with architectural detail as preserved in situ. It documents
the small domed mosque that was installed after the explosion in
1687 in the interior of the now open temple, and later removed in the
course of restoration in the 19th century.
The large-scale vedute by the French painter Lancelot-Theodore Comte
de Turpin de Crissé is a further important testimony to the enthusiasm
for Greece in the 18th century that reached its peak in the philhellenic
movement supporting the fight for freedom by the Greeks against the
Turks, beginning in 1821. This freedom fight, in which Lord Byron
among others participated, ended in 1830 with the London Protocol
establishing an independent Greek Kingdom.
Since the 18th century, Greece began to gain importance as a travel
destination. Not only members of the nobility and artists as part of their
cavalier‘s or study travels visited Greece in addition to Italy and France,
but the middle class, having attained wealth, were taking extended
study tours to the origin of Greek antiquity. Turpin de Crissé undertook
his first European travels to Switzerland, Italy and possibly to Greece,
with the assistance of the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, who had already
visited Greece in 1776, and helped the young artist to obtain his first
commissions. Our painting of the Acropolis may be a commission by