Sardis

ca. 1830-1835 · Watercolour · 24.9 × 29.4 cm

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Museu Vitória e Alberto

Londres, Reino Unido

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In 1832-33, the publisher John Murray commissioned Sir Augustus Wall Callcott, William Turner, David Roberts, Clarkson Stanfield and James Duffield Harding, and other established artists, to provide drawings for a series of prints illustrating Biblical scenery, finally published as Landscape Illustrations Of The Bible. Some drawings were imaginary, yet this real on-the-spot sketch by a `Mr Maude' [otherwise unknown] was used in the case of Sardis. It is a rather dull but competent amateur ink and wash sketch of the only two columns still standing of the Temple of Artemis, with no figures or anything of emotional interest. Sardis, now the flourishing town of Sart in modern Turkey, was a desolate spot in the 1830s. Then the visitor saw only a few ruins, a pathetic remnant of the fabulous wealth of one of the Seven Churches of Asia to which the Apocalypse, the Revelation of St John the Divine, had prophesied utter destruction.

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William Finden, the engraver, then gave Clarkson Stanfield this unprepossessing drawing to `work up' and do his best with. Why Finden did this is obvious. Stanfield duly used it as the starting point of his own painting [See SD.1000], yet immediately made it into a dramatic watercolour, rivalling his contemporary, the painter John Martin, by introducing a thunderstorm and a rider who has been thrown down by his horse, panicked by the apocalyptic weather [However, Stanfield's use of this watercolour is now disputed, see above in Comment: Professor Fikret Yegül, March 2021]. The finished print in the book is a fairly faithful version of this dramatic improvement. Stanfield was well qualified for this dramatisation. With David Roberts, he was one of the principal theatrical scene painters of his day, as well as a marine painter rivalling Turner.

Remember, it was not merely a picture of some ruins; the image referred to the fulfilment of a Biblical prophecy, which actually looked forward to the final days, the terrible moment of God's Last Judgement. Only an artist's imagination could transform Mr Maude's record drawing into a visual sermon.

Museu Vitória e Alberto