Art

A beautiful view of the ruins at Milet, once an important Ionian port, in Western Turkey. In the foreground, a group of men sit on the banks of the Meandre gazing across at the ruins in the distance. In 1776 Choiseul-Gouffier and the artist J.B. Hilaire joined a cartographic survey of the Mediterranean. Volume I of Voyage Pittoresque, his account of their tour of the Greek islands, the coast of Asia Minor, and of his travels on the mainland, was immediately acclaimed on publication in 1778. According to Brunet, it was incontestably the most beautiful production of this kind seen until then. Choiseul-Gouffier's work offered for the first time, illustrations of remote places that complemented the scrupulously researched narrative. Copper engraving. Later colour. Size: 38 x 25 cm. (15 x 10 inches)