"Of publick utility and publick property" :

Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Sculptures

DvrRr \7rr-rralas

INtRooucrtoN

There has been a good deal of recent discussion concerning the basis for and proc-ess of the activities of Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Eigin and Eleventh Earl ofKincardine, in Athens at the very beginning of the nineteenth century. This articleis inrended to offer a detailed analysis of the removal of the individual pieces ofsculpture from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin's team, while at the same rime re-examining such key issues as the operation of th.e firman that was issued zoo years

ago, the motivation behind the removals, and Lord Elgin's ultimate intentions forthe sculptures.

The first account of Lord Elgin's embassy and the removal of the sculptures was

written by the Rev. Philip Hunt, his chaplain, while they were both detained at

Pau in southern France inJanuary rSoy ', and this formed the basis for the firstpublished document, Mernorandum on tbe Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece(r8ro) '.In r9t6, on the occasion of the centenary of the acquisition by the Brit-ish Museum of the Elgin collection A.H. Smith thoroughly examined all of thepertinent documents known to him and pub[shed a fundamental study fromwhrch all later accounts essentially derive, including many sections of successive

editions of \Milliam St Clair's popular book, Lord Elgin G the Marbles t.

Crucial to a proper understanding of Lord Elgin's activities is both an awareness

of the contemporary politrcal events and the reactions of the individuals involved.It was the decision by the Ottoman government to side with Great Britain against

the French, rheir o1d aIlies, foliowing Bonaparte's seizure of Egypt, nominally an

Ottoman possession, that prompted the British Government to send out a special

This first narrative was conceived as a report for Hunt's patron, Lord Upper Ossory, towhom it was sent on January 9'h r8o5. A copy was forwarded by Lord Eigin to his mother,

Dowager Ladv Elgin, on Januarl, r3'h. Another version was woven into a long letter fromHunt to Mrs. Hamilton Nisbet, Lady Elgin's motheq on February zo'h r8o5 - this has been

published (not quite in full) in Nisbet Letters 328-,4t. See Suttu, 296.

This document (Memorandurz), presumably by Lord Elgin himself, incorporated much o{Hunt's narrative. It was published in London in successive editions in r8lo, r8r r and r815.

See SIr'ttTu, 3o8 with fn. 273.

Slutu ; Sr. CLAIR LEM ; Sr. Crxrx LEM'; ST. CLArR LEl,lr. A further extremeiy usefulaccount, independent of St. Clair's, is given by the late Jacob Rothenber g (see ROTHENBERG :

a Coiumbia Universitl. thesis of 196), My own article is also heavily based on Smith'sremarkable study as well as on the original documents.

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DYFRI \fi/ILLIAMS

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embassy. Moreover, it was the subsequent British success against the French thatplaced the British ambassador in an extraordinarily influentiai position. Yet itwas the combination of the overall vision of Lord Elgin, the political instinct ofboth his chapiain, the Revd. Philip Hunt, and his personal secretary, Villiam R.

Hamilton, and finally the extraordinary tenacity of his chief artist, GiovanniBattista Lusieri, that created the collection of sculptures destined to form "theElgin Marbles".

Lono ElcrN's ARrrsrrc EMe,{ssy

At the end of 1798 Lord E1gin, already an experienced diplomat at the age of 32,was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of HisBritannic Majesty to the Sublime Porre of Selim I1I, Sultan of Turkey. To theregular duties of such an embassy, namely to foster the interests of Hrs Majestythe King and his subjects, were added some specific instructions, especially topersuade the Turks to open the Black Sea to British trade. At the heart of themission, however, 1ay the need to cement Turkey's goodwill towards Britain and

to keep France's influence on the wain.

It was Lord Elgin's intention that his time as Ambassador at Constantinopleshould also be "beneficial to the progress of the Fine Arts in Great Britain" +. Aswith others of his rank and obligations, such a concept was a natural result ofhaving been educated in the civic humanism of the Enlightenment culture. It had

been encouraged in him by his mentor and kinsman, Lord Ailesbury, through his

association with Dr. Wiliiam Robertson, one of the leading figures of the ScottishEnlightenment, and by Robertson's prot6g6, rhe young George Hill, Professor ofGreek at St. Andrews, with whom Elgin maintained a long correspondence t.

Elgin decided to discuss his ideas with Thomas Flarrison, the architect whom he

had chosen rn t796 to rebuild his country seat at Broomhali in Scotland 5.

Harrison, who like other architects of his day had been trained in Italn urged

Elgin that there was a need to make Greek architecture better known by not onlyhaving detaiied measured drawings made but also moulds or exact models of the

actual objects which could be brought back to Britain. Lord Elgin took up thissuggestion with great energy and even put a proposal to the Foreign Secretary,

Select Com 3. Ql Elgin letter to'if.R. Hamilton, z7'h November r8o4; Memorandutn,3T and

39 ;Sr. Cr-art LEM),6.For the role of these figures in Elgin's education, see CHECKLAND,4-ro, r3 and r7-r8.For the role of Harriso n see M emorandwm, r-z; Select Cotn, 3 r ; Sl,tItH, r 66 ; St. ClarnLEM3,6,

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LoRD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

Lord Grenville, to equip the embassy at government expense with a team of art-

ists, architects and mould-makers, but his approach was unsuccessful.

En route to Constantinople, however, Elgin met Sir William Hamilton at Palermo

on Sicily and discussed with him the project of sending a team of artists and

moulders to Athens. Elgin's aim of fostering the arts by example and practical

inspiration will have been further encouraged by this meeting, for Hamilton had

recently published his second collection of vases with just this sort of commit-ment /. Hamilton was able to recommend the remarkable Italian artist, Giovanni

Battista Lusieri, at that time in the service of the King of Naples as a court-paintcrengaged to sketch the ruins of Sicily, but also undertaking commissions for a

number of private patrons. Indeed, Lusieri's reputation may well have already

been known to E1gin, for Lord Ailesbury had been sent by his son, Lord Bruce, a

view of \resuvius by Lusieri in 179z 8. Elgin succeeded in coming to an arrange-

ment with Lusieri, who was then sent off wrth W.R. Hamilton to look for othcr

artists in Naples and Rome and to procure materials for them. In the end, Ham-ilton put together a team consisting of a figure painter (Feodor lvanowitch, called

the Calmuck), two architectural draftsmen (Vincenzo Balestra and Sebastian

Ittar) and two moulders or formatorl (Bernardino Ledus and Vincenzo Rosati).

Atur,Ns IN r8oo

It was late in July r 8oo that Lord E,1gin's team of artists arrived in Greece. At that

time Athens was a sma1l town of mixed population, inhabited by Greeks, Turks

and Albanians, there being perhaps some rzoo houses with about yoo occupied

by Greeks, 4oo by Turks and 3oo by Albanians e. Ottoman rule, which had essen-

tia1ly been the case for most of the period since the fall of Constantinople in r45 3,

was by the end of the eighteenth century in the hands of the Voivode (Civil Gov-ernor) and the Disdar (Military Governor, responsible for the fortified Citadel;aided by his lieutenant, the Azap Aga, who was in charge of the Janissaries). The

Muslim and Christian communities, however, were administered separately, the

former by the Cadi (judge) and the Mufti (religious leader), the latter by Archons,

who supervised, amongst other things, tax collection, and the Archbishop, whowas responsible for education and other social matters, as well as the continuation

of the Orthodox faith. The position of the Voivode was purchased annuallv for a

7

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9

On Hamilton's second collection see Yases G Yolcanoes, 55-57.\/ases O Yolcanoes;72.

Sttttu, r77-r78. Note St. Clair's changing descriptions: "a shabbn miserable little town(LEM',5o) and "a small town (...) like many in the Ottoman Empire" (LEM:, a3).

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DYFRI \WILLIAMS

considerable sum by the incumbent directly from the Porte, thus providing some

sort of regular central check on the distant province 'o.

There was a good deai of easy mixing between the communities, as EdwardDodwell's view, the Bazar of Atbens, encapsulates ". Indeed, in r8oo both theVoivode and the Disdar were married to Greeks, while in r 8o3 the Voivode was

described by Lord Aberdeen as "a man who seems to have seen more of thewor1d, and studies politeness, much more than the Turks in general. He is a

Candiot by birth and much attached to the English" ". The British ConsularAgent was Spiridion Chromatianos, a member of one of the then seemingly he-reditary families that served as Archons and were a vital part of the Ottomanadministrative structure '1. The Chromatianos family was even given the name

Logotheti by the Europeans (logotbetes meaning accountant). The Rev. PhilipHunt referred to Spiridion Logotheti in r8or as "the Principal Greek here, wholives in the best of sty1e" 'a. Logotheti's son, Nicolaos, is shown in the foregroundof Dodwell's picture and described as Voivode of Salamis (he was also EnglishVice-Consul, rSoz-i8r6, and Consul, t8r5-t8zo).

LusIr,RI's Tealt neciN \(/oRK - r 8oo-r 8or

Elgin's team could expect easy access to the monuments throughout Athens.Only in one place were problems predictablc and encountered, nameiy on the

Acropolis. The reasons for this were threefold : firstly, it was a military fortresswith consequent military sensitivities; secondly, the womenfolk of the Disdar and

his lieutenant, together with those of a fewJanissaries, lived there 'r, and thirdly,successive Disdars viewed access by Christians as a source c,f personal profit. it

IJ

The Voivode changed annually at the beginning of March : J. STUAM & N. REVETT, TreAntiquities of Athens I, London, t762, x. They record the saying that the new Voivode"brings the cranes with him". Many other "appointments" were secured in a similar fashion,

but not necessarily on an annual basis (eg. the Archbishop).Doownll, Viei;:s in Greece, pL. rz. Cf . also lW. St. Ctttx, That Greece Might Still be Free,

London, t972-,7.

Lord Aberdeen's Diarl March-September r 8o3, 4o. Qf also Robert Smirke's comment in his

Journal vol. II, r8'h July r8o3, that the Voivode was "very partial to the English".See \W. Mtll-Ex, Tbe Englzsb in Athens before r8-zr, London, t92.6, 2.8-3o, for a list of the

British consuls in Arhens.Robert Smirke in r8o3 (ournal, vol I, 9'h July) gave Logotheti's annual revenue as ,+,ooo

piastres (c. !3zo). For a view of his grand house see O.M. voN STACKELBERG, La Grice:Vues pittoresques et to?ograpbiques,Parts, r 834, Attica pi. r6 ; P.a,r,r-atoU, Athina, n' zt 5.

Villiam Grr-l (Diar,v, 7r) rells us that there were onlv some ro inhabited houses, the rest

b eing ruins. For the problem of overlooking the Turkish houses s ee SlatTu, r 8 r , with fn z i ,

ra6

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERT1 LoRD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

was traditional for gifts to be given to the Disdar and the gate-keeper by a foreign

visitor to secure entry to the Acropolis (normally sugar, coffee or textiies), but

Lusieri was only able to negotiate access for his team at the rate of five guineas a

day and the construction of scaffolding, which might have provided unwelcome

views into the houses, w.as out of the question. As a result, the team of artists,

architects andformatoriwere set to work on the buildings elsewhere in the city,

namely the so-ca11ed Theseion and the Lysikrates Monument, and Logotheti

wrore ro Elgin warning him of the nee d for a firman (official letter of permission)

if the artists were actually to go up on the monuments on the Acropolis.

In February r8oI Lusieri visited Lord Elgin in Constantinople, no doubt to re-

port on progress '6. Following this afirman of some sort seems to have been ob-

tained and forwarded to Logotheti in Athens through the Ottoman postal sys-

tem. Lusieri returned to Athens on April t 5th and reported that work was going

well and that the scaffolding had been erected even withou t the firman, which he

adds never arrived'7.In the middle of May, however, the situation deteriorated when news of a French

naval build-up at Toulon reached the Turks and orders went out to secure all

fortresses throughout Greece in the face of a possible attack. As a result, the

Disdar stopped all work on the Acropolis. This set-back, howerrer, coincided

with the arrival in Athens both of Lord Elgin's parents-in-1aw, Mr. and Mrs.

\7i11iam Hamilton Nisbet, and of Rev. Philip FIunt, who had come via MountAthos. Hamilton Nisbet received every courtesy, even being presented with an

ancient marble throne by the Archbrshop of Athens's. Upon his visit to the

Acropolis, promises were made as to the resumption of Lusieri's work there.

Hunt's description to the Select Committee of the situation that he encountered

summarises all these problems :

"I found on my first visit to Athens that the fermauns which had been

granted to Lord Elgin's artists were not sufficiently extensive to attain

t1-re ob jects they had in view, that their operations were frequently inter-

rupted bv the Disdar or military governor of the Citadel, and by his

Janizaries, and other considerable obstacles thrown in their way, by

sometimes refusing them admission and by destroying their scaffold-

ing" 'e'

SMITH, r82.

Lusieri letter, r6'h May rSor ; SIvtITu, r85.

Huntletter,zzndMavrSor;Sulru,r85-r88;NisbetLetters,zz3withpl.oppositep.z-24;C.GASPARRI, ASAtene 5z-j3 0971-), lr3-)9:', especiallv i49-3tt n'T.r, figs. 36-4o. NowBritish Museum GR zoor.y-8.I : D. \TlLLlavs, British Museum Magazine 4r (autumn/win-

ter zoor),4o.Select Com, 56.

r07

r6

t7

r8

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DYFRI \{/rLLrAN4s

ro8

It would seem like1y, rherefore , that the first firman probably went directly toLogotheti or the Disdar, so that Lusieri remained ignorant of it. Furthermore, indiscussing prepararions for a second firman, Hunt continued that he had been"deceived with respect to the prerended contents of a fermaun" and commentedthat he "never saw any trar-rslation of the first, but found it had been inefficient".It is possible that Hunt did keep some record of the firstf rman, perhaps a Turk-ish copy, for the extant ltalian copy of the secondf rman o{lrly rSor is reporredby St. clair to have been carefully marked by Hunt as "Kaimacam's Lerrer No. z.

To rhe Governor of Athens" to.

A uoRe "EFFicrENT" Ftau,qN IS soucHT - SuMn,rEn r 8or

Hunt arrived back in Constantinople onJune 4'h" to explain the current state ofaffairs. It seems possible, at least to judge from Lady Elgin's lerrers .., that hefound that Elgin's enthusiasm was beginning to wane ir-r the face of the problemsbeing encountered by his team in Arhens. Hamiiton Nisbet, howeveS senr en-couraging letters about the importance and quality of the work being done by theartists and, reinspired, E,lgin began on June r4,1, the process of applying for a

firman through the Capitan Pasha, with whom he and Lady Elgin had very warmrelations,while asking Flunt ro draw up the requirements for a c\ear firman.Hunt delivered his recommendations in the form of a memorandum, dated Julyr", which reads as follows :

"Mr Hunt recommends that a Ferman should be procured frorn thePorte, addressed to the Voivode and Cadi of Athens, as well as to theDisdar, or Governor of the Citadel ; stating that the Artists are in theservice of the British Ambassador Extraordinary, and that they are tohave not only permission, but protection in the following objects :

r. To enter freely witl-rin the walls of the Citadel, and to draw andmodel with plaster the Ancient Temples there.

2. to erect scaffolding, and to dig where they may wish to discover theancient foundations.

3. liberty to take away any sculptures or inscriptions which do not in-terfere with the works or wails of the Citadel. .1"

'" Sr. CLAIRaEMT, 337 ;itis also referredto as the "second

" Nisbet Letters, 9o,

" Nisbet Letters, gz and roo-ror.']i SMITI{, r9o (document at Broomhall).

lermrun" bv Hunt.Selec,t Coiz, 55.

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LoRD ELGIN AND THT PARTHENON SCULPTURES

Elgin toid the Select Committee that the negotiations for this firman were all

vcrbal, so that we cannot now track the development of the elements that it con-

tained in any detail. Lady Elgin, however, rncluded in one of hcr letters a report ofa meeting iate in the process between Lord Elgin, Hunt and Bartolomeo Pisani,

the official dragoman (translator) assigned to the British mission'+. Elgin "in-

sisted upon his translating litera111, whatever he gave him, without Pisani's taking

upon himself to alter his orders, by way of pleasing the Turks", but Pisani was

reluctant. As a result, Elgin and F1unt seem to have had to apply pressure on

Pisani (to give him "a most amazing rattle", as L.ady Elgin put it) in order to get

him to formulate the request exactly as they wished. Pisani even offered to resign

on grounds of ill health, but Hunt was able to win him round as a result of his

close relations with Pisani's family. It is clear that the risk of having to use such

intermediaries was that, as masters of the languages of both the requesting and the

granting parties, they could write the resulti,ngfirman in sttch a fashion that they

gained favour with both parties. This is presumably what went wrong on the

previous occasion, as well as the failure to address the Voivode and the Cadi.

The composing of the text of the application by Hunt and the discussions withPisani have to bc seen against the historical background of the French seizure ofEgypt. The British Expeditionary Force under General Sir Ralph Abercrombyhad begun preparations on Malta and then been brought to Asia Minor where

Lord Elgin helped secure al1 thc necessary provisions, as well as landing craft and

horses, committing huge amounts of his own funds. The British force landed at

Aboukir Bay in March r8or and after several victories was able to combine in

June with the Turkish forces, vrhich had arrived from Syria, and to lay siege to

Cairo. OnJune z7'h r8or Cairo surrendered, but the news did not reach Constan-

tinople until July ,3th :r. 1']r. Turks were clearly very pleased, inviting Lord Elginto an audience onJuly zznd at which he was given "a horse richly caparisoned,

invested him with a pelisse, and made him a fine speech on his activity etc." News

of Alexandria's fa1l arrived on September zr" (it actually surrendered on August

I r* '6) and, as a result, great celebrations were inaugurated by the Suitan. No-body was in higher favour than Lord Elgin'2. He was showered with gifts and

honours. The culmination came in January r 8oz when the Sultan granted Elgrn's

request for the release o{ t36 Maltese slaves (Malta was now British), a gesture

that amounted to the equivalent of a gift of more than !4o,ooo 's.

Nisbet Letters, 96-97.This date for the surrender of Cairo is that given by Lady E\gin, Nisbet Letters, roo; ST.

CLAIR LEM),88 gives June r7'h. The date of the reeeipt of the news in Constantinople is

from Lady Elgin's letter.

Nisbet Letters, rto.See St. Clarn LEMt, Sz-84.

Nisbet Letters, t63.

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t6

27

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DYFRI \flILLIAN{S

I IO

A FtnueN rs GRANTED -JuLv r 8or

It was on July 6'h that Pisani informed Elgin of the success of the application for a

firman. As a result, news of the fall of Cairo can have had no impact wharsoeveron the Kaimmakam Seyid, Abdullah Pasha, who had already signed the docu-ment twelve days earlier 'e. Nevertheless, one has to suppose that the general situ-ation in Egypt, with British forces combining with Turkish ones ro corner rhe

French, was of particuiar importance at this point. Indeed, when asked by theParliamentary Select Committee in r8r6 "was this fermaun granred after the con-quest of Egypt by the British arms ?", Hunt replied very precisely thar "ir was

after their first successes" lo. Lord Elgin's own commenr was that "the whole sys-tem of Turkish feeling met with a revolution, in the first place, from the invasionof the French, and afterwards by our conquest" ;'.Naturalln Lord E,lgin's reaction ro rhe news was enthusiasric, as was Lady Elgin'swho, furthermore, reporrs rhat Hunt was "in raptures for the firman is perfec-tion" i'. No Turkish text of the firman has so far come to light, only an Italiantranslation, made at FIunt's suggestion. This independent translation was securedfrom a Mr. Dan6 rr. Dan6 is known to us from one of Lady Elgin's letters - she

describes him as "a respectable o1d man, and I believe [has] more honesty in himthan anyone here" l+. Although Dan6 clearly spoke English, he presumably usedItalian for his translation because he felt most confident of producing an accuraretranslation in r.he lingwa franca of the diplomatic circles in which he moved. ThisItalian translation was kept by Hunt and an English version of it was senr forpublication in the Select Committee's Report in r8r6;r. The Italian translationwas evcntually given to William St. Clair by Hunt's great-grand niece, Mrs. A.C.Longland, some time before the pub[catron of the first edition of his book int967, enalsline him to publish there a new translarion of it. For unexplained rea-sons) a transcription of the actual Italian text was sadly not given until the third

]J

St. Clatn LEM), 88 wronglv states that "these two events were intimateiy connected : in-deed, allowing for the time news took to travel, one followed at once afrer the other".Select Com, 56.

Select Com, zo.

Nisbet Letters, 97 (written July 9'h).Hunt's letter of July 3 r"'to Elgin. ST. CLAIR LEMI, y wrongly transcribed the name of thetranslator as "Pisani", the name of the British dragoman (official translator) that he pr esum-ably had been expecting to find.Letter of October rr, r8or : Nisbet Letters, r4r.The conrexr is Lad1, Eigint wish to have

someone able to talk Gr eek, Turkish and French with her on the planned trip with Elgin. She

was "amazinglv delighted" that Den6 agreed to accompany them.Select Com,69 (Appendix r o). This English translation was made by Hur.rt himself ( see Select

Com, 5) and it reveals a direct knowledge of the form of the Turkish original.

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD EI-GIN aNO THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

edition of his book rn r998 16. This Italian translation makes it clear that all the

essential details of Hunt's initial memorandum were fully agreed.

The significant contents o{ the firman are, in typical fashion, repeated twice, the

request or petition being first recorded and then granted:

"... it is the explicit desire and engagement of this Excellent Empire (...)

that on the arrival of this ietter you use your Diligence to act conform-abl1, 16 the re quest of the said Ambassador, while the said five artists inthat place s1-ra1l be employed in going in and out of the gate of the Cita-del of Athens, which is the place of their study ; or in erecting scaffold-

ing around the ancient temple of the Idols; or in modelling with chalk(or Gypsum) t1-re said ornaments and visible figures; or in measuring the

remains of other ruined edifices; or in excavating, when they find itnecessarv. the foundations, in search of inscriptions perhaps preserved

among the rubbish; that they be not molested by the Disdar nor by any

other persons, nor even by you the above mentioned ; and that no one

meddle with their scaffolding and implements, nor hinder them fromtaking away anv pieces of stone with inscriptior-rs, and figures, and inthe above-mentioned manner conduct and comport yourselves.iT"

This letter of instruction from the Kaimmakam, addressed to both the Voivode

and the Cadi, was consistently referred to by all parties as afirman lE. The con-

l8

ST. CLAIR af,MJ , 337-31r.In r97y St. Clair offered this document (together with other Huntpapers which he describes as "the mmp of a much larger collection lost in the r93os") to the

British Museum for purchase, but the price asked was deemed excessive by the Keeper of the

Department of Manuscripts at the newly created British Librarn St. Clair relates ("The Par-

thenon Sculptures : Questions of Authenticity", in: The Destiny of the Parthenon Marbles,

R. HuBBARD Hov/LAND (ed.), \washington D.C., zooo, 38) that, despite the fact that, while

the documents were remporarily safe in thc British Museum, his apartment was broken into,

rhey are sril1 kept in a box under his bed. It might be assumed that he did not publish the {ull

Italian text in his second edition because he still entertained some prospect of a sale. It might

also be argued that this document should rightfully have been surrendered by Hunt to LordElgin.

This translation is based on the Italian text now published by St. Ciair (with minor in;rccura-

cies) with the help both of his new transiation of it and of Hunt's, as published by the Select

Committee.

V DE\{ETRIADEs, tn: Cultwral Property: Return and ILlicit Trade (Seventh Report of House

of Commons, Culture, Media and Sport Committee), London, zooo,267-2.72, has argued

that the document was really a mektub rather than a firman, which he interprets in its srnct-

est sense as a decree of the Sultan. See also ST. CLAIR, IJCP 8, z (tggg),499-5ao, fn. r r, The

word firman was also commonly used for the equivalent of a passport.

DYFRI \fi/ILLIAN{S

temporary force of such a letter, however, is made ciear in Lord Elgin's statementto the Select Committee - "in point of fact, permission issuing from the Porte forany of the distant provinces, is little better than an authority to make the best

bargain you can with the 1oca1 authorities" le.

Lord Elgin's views on the contents of the firman at this point might best be

gauged from his letter ro Lusieri of July ro'h4o. He begins by saying that Huntwill bring with him all the details of the securing of the firman and notes that"when you have heard about the matter, you will feel the importance of taking al1

possible advantages from it. The first aim is to finish the great work we1l, the

ensemble with which you are all busy..." FIe continues by stressing the impor-tance of the formatori making exact models of ornaments "interesting for theArts". FIe observes too that the permission now given to excavare is "as extraor-dinary as the circumstances which procured it are precarious". It is only at thevery end of the letter, having discussed the acquisition of unworked marble forBroomhall, that he comments that "you do not need any prompring from mc toknow the vaiue that is attached to a sculptured marb1e..." As a result, it seems

unlikely that in Constantinople Lord Elgin ever anticipated the possibi[ry of ac-

tuaily removing sculptures from any of the buildings.Lady Elgin's description of the firrnan is also worth quoting :

"It allows All our Artists to go into the Citadel to copy and modeleverything in it, to erect scaffolds all around the Temple, to dig and

discover all the ancient foundations, and to bring away any Marblesthat may be deemed curious by their having inscriptions on them- andthat they are not to be disturbed by the Soldiers etc: under an). pretencewhatsoever.a"'

This would seem to confirm the impression formed from Lord Elgin's letter thatthere was as yet no confident thought of removing substantial amounts of sculp-ture from the building.The granting of permission to draw, mould, excavate and even remove, of course,

should not be thought of as unique, for just such permissions were given toLouis-Frangois-S6bastien Fauvel from r785 while he was acting as the agent ofthe French Ambassador, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier 1'. One exceptional fea-

)e Select Cctm, t8.ao This letter is fully quoted by Sl,trtu, rgt-r92,+, Nisbet Letters, 97-98.a' On Fauvel see the biography by Ph.-E. LEGRAND, Reoue Arcbdologique

r85-zor, l8r-4o4 and Reoue Archiologique 3t $897),94-raj, r8y-zz3 ;seeHesperia : (rSl5), zo6-zz4 (for rhe r78o trip).

3o Q897), 4r-66,also C.G. Lotvl,

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,,: LORD Ei-CIN ANO THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

ture, however, is sometimes noted but rarely commented on and never fu1ly ex-

plained. This is the inclusion in the party that set off to Athens with thefrman of

a Mubishir, a government commissary, named Raschid Aga. Hunt notes that he

was assigned to "see that the contents of the firman are obeyed" +1. His Presence

in Hunt's company throughout t8or and r8oz is a vital component in under-

standing the application of the firman, for as a court official he outranked the

Disdar, the Cadi and even the Voivode. \(e must assume, therefore, that a1i that

was begun in r 8or and carried on through r 8oz u,as specifically sanctioned by the

Mub)shir and thus effectively by the Porte itself.

THp Appr-rcATIoN oF THE Ftnu,qN

Hunt's party, including Raschrd Aga, arrived in Athens on the evening of

Vednesday July zz"d aa. Hunt found that Lusieri and his team had been working

on the Acropolis for the last month or so, but only after a sum of 34o piastres had

been paid in advance for a fu1l year's access at and under sufferance of attacks on

the scaffolding by the Turkish janissaries a6. He also found that two young Eng-

lish travellers, William Ge1l and Edward Dodwell, together with their friend

Atkins, who had arrived in Athens on July r otl,, were having similar difficulties in

entering the Acropolis. Geli's account, written uP at rhe end of r8oI, is more

accurate and informative than Dodwell's later rather egocentric reconstruction,

and reveals something more of the role of Logotheti, the British Consul, in the

Ottoman intrigues a7. Gell wrote that "the Eng[sh Agent [Logotheti] appeared

very anxious to compel us to pay 6o piastres to the Disdar for permission to enter

the castle. He seemed very unwilling to present our letter of recommendation to

the Voivode'+s. As a result, Gel1 and Dodwell determined to call on the Disdar

without informing Logotheti. They were civilly received and were granted per-

mission to enter whenever they chose. Vhen they told Logotheti of this "he put

on his cloak and hurried out immediately. \7e found ourselves refused admittance

+r Hunt's lelter to Hamilton Juiy 8'h;SMITH, t9z-r94. This official is also mentioned with

deference by william Gell in his Diary of i8or, 95, as "a Reis Effendi of the Grand Signor".

14 Hunr letter of 3 r"'July r 8or ; Sutru, r95.+r Lusieri accounts) r5'hJune r8or. Also recorded in Logotheti's accounts and in his letter of

August 5'h r 8or.a6 Repairs reported in Lusieri's accounts : zz'd June and 4'h Jul,v.+z Gell's Diary; Dodwell Tour I, 3zz, also merges his memory o{ the removal of the first

metopes inJuly/August rSor with later reports and gossip given to him after the event dur-

ing his visit of r 8o5-5, when he was staying at the Capuchin monastery with Fauvei.

+s Gell's Diary,96: quoted by M.R. Bplttcq,Journal of Hellenic Studies 9z$972), ryi.

IlJ

DYFRI \VILLIAMS

on the next day, and by this means discovered the treachery of our friend". It isthus ciear that Logotheti was in league with the Disdar and the voivode, a conclu-sion which perhaps explains rhe "non-arrival" of the first firman, as well as thehigh tariff demanded of Elgin's team.

On the following day, therefore, IJunt set off together with Raschid Aga, theMub)shir, to see the voivode. IH,s firman was addressed to the voivode and thecadi, the Disdar being their subordinate. In the discussions that followed theMub)shir played an important ro1e, as FIunt noted in his report to Elgin +s. Thevoivode "was highly mortified to find that the Disdar had presumed to treat anyE,nglishman with disrespecr) or demand any moiey on any pretexr". Hunt de-manded that the Disdar's son be summoned (the father was very il1 and died a fewdays later) and on examination by the voivode and the Mub)shir he was pro-nounced exiled. Hunt, however, then intervened and had him pardoned, theMub)shir threatening that if rhere was another complainr he might be forced tojoin the Sultan's gaileys. The result was that all Englishmen were free to enter rhecitadel from dawn to dusk to draw and measure (this for Gel1, Dodwell andAtkins) and that Lusieri's team had "fu1l liberty ro model, dig, or carry awaywhatever does not interfere with the works".Hunt's description to Lord Elgin of these events is s,orth quoting too :

"I found our consul extremely timid, but I trust what he has lately seenwill inspire him with more confidence. As Archon of Athens, p..hrp.,he did not enter con arnore intothe idea of taking the sculptures fromthe Parthenon; and ventured to hint that the Voivode dursr nor extendthe Firman to such a point. Flowever, Mr Dan6t excellent literal trans-lation of the Caimakam's second letter, and rhe rumour of the fall ofCairo, inspired me with confidence. I spoke in a determined tone; andsucceeded, I trust, without exciting the least disgust in anv party. TheVoivode behaved with uniform politeness. I did not even menrion hav-ing presents for him till rhe metopes were in motion. I then gave himpart of what was destined, reserving the remainder tiil my departure.He sent me three sheep a da1,, and a quanriry of fruit." to

It should be noted from this that Hunt's presenrs for the voivode were part of a

normal two-way grft-giving process) not in fact what we might now presume rocall "bribery" wirh connorations of the modern, \Testern concept of corrup-tron l'-

{e Hunt lerter July 3 r"' r 8or; Sl,tItu, r95-r96.,o Hunt letter of July 3r" to Elgin. This section of the

Crxx LEI,F,93.t' Hunt seems only to have given presents; for Lusieri's

below ("Lusieri: artist and agent"), t53-t6o.

letter is incompletely quoted by ST.

payments of money to the Disdar see

t14

,.OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LoRD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

This initial reluctance of Logotheti was clearly neither serious nor long-lasting.Indeed, on August 6'1' he sent a message of congratulations to Lord Elgin and a

protestation of his zeal for the work, at the same time offering as a gift four other

reliefs or objects with relief sculpture ,'. Evidence of the Greek reaction to the

British presence is also provided by the Archbrshop whom Hunt describes as

"uncommonly attentive", presenting him with "an ancient Greek Sundial withthe maker's name, that was in his Metropolitan Church" i;.

One further description of these events) in the long letter from Hunt written toLady Eigin's mother from Pau in r 8o5, reveals the direct personal role that Hunthad in just how such an open firman was actually operated.

"The Fermar-r of the Sultan, which i took with me on my second visit toAthens was expressed in very forcible language, and obviated all the

difficulties under which you saw the Artists suffer, and their plan sus-

pended, during your stay there. It even authorised them to make exca-

vations, and to secure for Lord Elgin any fragments of inscriptions orsculpture they might find. \(zith such authority backed by the success ofour arms at that moment in Egvpt, I conceived that an extension mightbe given to the words of the ferman, which the Vaivode did notoPPose... t'1"

Hunt added a final gioss in his ietter to E,lgin of 3 r July r 8o r : "Raschid Aga tells

me that Hadji Ibrahim Effendi's letter has been of more service to me with respect

to the Citadel than the Caimakam's." Hadji Ibrahim was the Ottoman Ministerof \Var and the patron of the Voivode. This inreresting comment, not previouslynoted, when taken together with the news of the fa11 of Cairo, clearly establishes

the immense importance of the Bridsh military success for Hunt's and Lusieri'swork at this moment.From this remarkable weaith of contemporary information we can see that it was

the Rev. Philip Hunt who was able to realise the fuil potential of the firman thar.

t' SMITH, r99. Of the four reliefs, Smith identified one as the archaistic Bacchanalian relief (BMCat Sculpture zr;4), which was drawn in siuby Thomas Hope (Hope,9y no 28, lower) -Hunt notes that itwas built into the fountain in Logotheti's courtyard (Nisbet Letters, 3q4),

a fountain which was octagonal (Stackelberg's engraving : see note r4 above) - and a second

as the relief with a cheriot and a Nike hovering above, illustrated at the beginning of the

l,[emorand.um (BM Cat Sculpture 8t4). Lusieri's accounts for August zz"d include reference

to an urn, presumably one o{ BM Cat Sculpture,68r, 683-685, 688-692.t j Hunr letter 3 r" July tSot ; BM Cat Scwlpture 2544.r+ Thissectionofthezo'LFebruaryr8o5 letterfromPauisnotpublishedinNisbetLettersand

is not noted by St. Clair. I am grateful to Mr. Julian H. Brooke for providing a copy of Hunt'soriginal letter. The original has now been purchased for the British Museum.

rit

DYFRI \WILLIAMS

II6

had been granted, but only upon seeing the effect on rhe voivode in Athens that itand his other letters of support, as well as the wider political evenrs, actually had.Unfortunately, none of the comments by Elgin or Hunt reveal whether they haddiscussed the possibility of removais from the buildings while FIunr was still inConstantinople. After they had understood the precise details of the firman,however, they must have realised that it clearly omitred to make any exclusions inits instruction as to the location of the pieces of stone with inscriptions and fig-ures that could be removed, whether in the walls of the citadel or in other build-ings, including the Parthenon.It was, presumably, on the basis of this open-endedness thac the Voivode gave

permission for removais from the buildings, as FIunt says, "to gratify what he

conceived to be the favourable wishes of the Turkish Government towards LordElgin, and which induced him rather to exrend than conrract rhe precisepermissions of the firmaun" tt. Furthermore, the voivode clearly felt particularlysecure in his agreement because of the letter from Hadji Ibrahim Effendi andbecause of the powerful presence of the Mub)shrr. This outcome may have ex-ceeded everyone's expectarions (including Logotheti's), based on previous expe -

rience, but it did not exceed the terms of the firman Indeed, the late r confirmingfirmans, and the fact that, as Elgin said to the Select Committee "... the thing wasdone publicly before the whole world (...) and all the loca1 authorities were con-cerned in it, as well as the Turkish government" r6, render claims that Elgin's teamillegitimately exceeded the terms of the initial firman quite invalid. St. Clair has

perceptively commented, presumably as a result of personal experience as a

former Treasury official, that "Governmenrs have only themselves to blame ifthey draft ambiguous instructions which are then misinterpreted by their offi-cials" t7. This presupposes, of course, that the Ottoman phrasing was nor deliber-ately open-ended and rhat the document's intentions were actually misinter-preted. Indeed, from what has been laid out above, it seems 1ike1y that it was thevery open-endedness o{ the firman that was the Kaimmakam's special and spe-cific gift to Lord Elgin.

Tsr, MotrvarroN FoR THE REMovALS

The motivation behind Philip Hunt's momenrous request to remove sculpturefrom the buildings would seem to have been largely that of preservarion, since he

Select Conr, 57.Select Com, t9.ST. CLAIR LEM|, go

tt

t6

t7

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LoRD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

was himself no collector. There are two major sources for this conclusion. Firstly,

his report of July 3 t" to Lord Elgin ended with a comment on the continuingdestruction that was caused by prising out the lead from the clamps that held the

blocks of marble together. He says that he is "sure that in half a century there willnot remain one stone on another. It would be we1l, my Lord, to ask for all that is

1eft, or else to do all that is possible to prevent their going on in this fashion".

Secondly, we might note the comment in Hunt's letter to Mrs. Hamilton Nisbetof zotl'February r8o5 : "For I must here beg leave to observe that every marble Iknow to be in Lord Elgin's possession, was rescued from a situation that exposed

it to imminent danger and that it is to his persevering exertibns that we owe the

preservation of so many vaiuable productions of Sculpture and Architecture.is"As for Lord Elgin's own testimony, this also takes two forms. The first is his oral

evidence to the Select Committee which gives a very ful1 picture of the circum-stances :

"From the time of Stuart's visit to Athens till the time I went to Turkey,a very great destrucrion had taken p1ace. There was an old temple on

the l11issus that had disappeared. There was in the neighbourhood ofEiis and Olympia another temple which had disappeared. At Corinth, Ithink Stuart gives thirteen columns, and there were only five when I got

there; and every traveller coming, added to the general defacement ofthe statuary in his reach: there are now in London pieces broken offwithin our day. And the Turks have been continually defacing the

heads; and in some instances they have actually acknowledged to me,

that they have pounded down the scuiptures to convert them into mor-

tar. It was upon these suggestions, and with these feelings, that I pro-ceeded to remove as much of the sculpture as I conveniently could; itwas no part of my original plan to bring away anything but my mod-

els.re"

The second source is the written comment at the end of his explanation to the

Committee of his expenses :

"But it is, I trust, sufficient to prove, that in amassing these remains ofantiquity for the benefit of my Country, and in rescuing them fromimminent and unavoidable destruction with which they were threat-

ened, had they been left many years longer the prey of mischievous

Turks, who mutilated for wanton amusement, or for the purpose of

selling them piecemeal to occasional travellers; I have been actuated by

Hunt's letter from Pau (this section was

Select Com, zo. f. also Memorandum,

edited out of Nisbet Letters).

5-8.

T17

DvrRr \flrr-r-raivrs

no motives of private emolument; nor deterred from doing what I feltto be a substantial good, by considerations of personal risk, or the fearof calumnious misrepresentations.6c"

One specific example that Lusieri may well have pointed out to Hunt on the

ground was the chiselling off of much of the figures of the heroes or magisrrates

on the East Frieze (figures $-46), which occurred between the making of a cast

of this section by Fauvel in ry87 and Elgin's eventual removal of the slab 6'. Thiss1ab, like the others from the east end, was lying on the ground in the vicinity ofthe temple or built into a nearby wal1. The risk to it and others like it had already

been noted by Chandler in the r77os :

"It is to be regretted that so much admirable sculpture as is stil1 extantabout this fabric fthe Parthenon] should be all like1y to perish, as itwere immaturelx from ignorant contempt and brutai violence. Nurrer-ous carved stones have disappeared; and many, lying in the ruinoushcaps, moved our indignation at the barbarism daily exercised in defa-cing them.6"'

This sense that Hunt and Lusieri were doing what had to be done, given the con-srant risk to the sculptures, is also reflected rn Gell's Diary of r80r. It is worthquoting the sectior-r in which he describes the appearance of the Parthenon in ful1,

since it has not been published before in its entiret;. :

"The pillars are (...) of the purest white, but now the general tint is abrilliant vellow shaded in parts with brown and under the capitals oftenblackened with smoke. The metopes have been adorned with exquisitesculpture, representing the combats of the centaurs, but the rage ofChristianity has not spared these beautiful remains of art. Owing to thehigh relief in which they were executed, the heads, legs and arms and

often great parts of the bodies of the combatants were perfect statues

only adhering to the temple by a small portion so that with instrumentsevery head arm and leg has been broken off by the bigots wherever itwas possible - two of the most perfect have been since taken to Englandby Lord Eigin, and the rest musr be left to the chance of encounteringgreedy antiquaries, or the more slow but not less certain ruin which

6a Select Com,66, Appendix 5.

See L. Blscut, in: Parthenc.tn-Kongress, Szo; and nowJ. Boano},/^HN,InterndtionalJowrnalof Cultural Properry 9 (zooo), 238-239.

Cu,A.NoI-ER Tr a.,L e k, 5 3.

I I8

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

must fo1low from the avarice of the Turks, who daily throw down whatthey arc ab1e, to procure the lead by which the marbles are joined.6;"

Similar worries were expressed by other travellers immediately after Elgin'sday 6+.

Tur. ExcavarroN AND Rr,laovals BEGrN

Vith the ful1 agreement of the Voivode, Hunt and Lusieri assembled a group ofworkers and began by collecting the inscriptions and sculptures that 1ay aroundon the Acropolis 6i. Gel1 described the path berween the Parthenon and theErechtheion to the north as a "walk over the ruined fragments of sculpture and ofcolumns from the north side of the Parthenon" 66. An interesting watercolour byAtkins in the Benaki Museum shows two Greek workers, one with a crow-bar orthe 1ike, under the watchful eye of a third figure in Turkrsh dress 67. They are atthe west end of the Acropolis, some distance from the Parrhenon, and may har.e

been looking for inscriptions. Lusieri's ream also took down the wa1ls hidrng the

Caryatid figurcs and a second Atkins watercolour in the Benaki shows thesewalls removed and a Greek workman pointing at the Caryatid porch, whilenearby are heaps of stones 68.

Hunt and Lusie ri also purchased "the house of one of the Turkish;'anissaries buiitimmediately under and against the columns of the portico" at the west end of the

6l

64

Geil's Diary p. 64 : quoted in part by M.R .Bxuce,Journal of Hellenic Stwdies 9z (t972), ry 4.This account contrasts with Dodwell's, written up much later, and based mostly on his r 8o5-

6 visit.

Eg. PE. LAURENT, Recollections of a ClassicaL Tour through t,arious parts of Greece, Turkeyand lta\, made in the 7,sart r8r8 G tBr9, London,rBzr, ro9-rro. C/. also the opinions of

J.B.S. MoRITT (Select Com,;z) and \X/. \VILKINS (Select Com,44-4y). For.il/ilkins's views

based on his trip of r8oz see aiso til/. \X/tLrtNS, Atheniensia or Remark.s on the Topographyand Buildings of Athens, London, r816, r44 (note). Qf. also the comments by A.-C.

Qu.tfnlurnl DE QUINCY in his Lettres 1crites de Londres i Rome et adress6es i M.Canoz,a, Rome, r8r8, z9-3o. Comments by E.D. Clarke and Dodwell seem ro have been

in{luenced by Fauvel and Lord Byron - see below. Some other commenrs, such as that byT.S. Huculs, Trat,ek in Sicily, Greece and Albania, London, r8zo, I, z6r, reveal ar-r igno-rance as to horv the Parthenon looked before rSor and as to whar Lusieri actuallv did.Lusieri eccounts. z5'h and u 9' July, record p.ry ior rhe men moving inscriprions.GELL'S Diary,66.

6t

66

67

68

There are four watercolours of the Acropolis b1, Atkins in the Benaki Museumz34r). That of the Propylaia is signed "Atkins r8or".C/. also one o{ Gell's sketches in the British Museum, which shows the wallsSlrveNs Ercchrheum, 549 [ig. zzo.

(inv. z3 39-

removed :

IT9

Dvrnr \& rr-r-t,qN{s

View of west end of Parthenon from southeast, \William Gell, r8or, Athens, BenakiMuseum

Parthenon 6v. After pulhng the house down, they excavated underneath it hopingto find the remains of the pedimental figures that had come off the building in theyears following the explosion of r687.In this they were successful and secured a

number of important fragments (the torsos of Poseidon f\7est M], Iris [N] and

Hermes [H] are recognisable from the descriptions, but there were fragments ofother draped females which are presumabiy West O and Q, as well as Athena,

West L) 7o. A view of the west front of the Parthenon by .William Geli in theBenaki Museum shows the fruits of this excavation (fig. r) 7'. There are two Euro-peans talking to a loca1 of some standing, near two fragmentary sculptures that lie

on the ground in front of the temple z'. Although there are no signs of the seem-

69

7a

Memorandwm, r4. Cf . the description in Hunt's letter from Paq Nisbet Letters, 333.Lusieri records in his accounts forJuly z9'h the employment of 8 men ro dig. For the finds ofsculpture see SMITH, t97-t98.BenakiMuseuminv.z343r:PaplaRou.4thina,65 nor45;A.DruvoRRttS,AGwidetotheBenaki Museurz, Athens, 2ooo, rJ3 (the watercolour is marked r4z c).

It might be tempring to try to identify the figures - the two Europeans could be his {riendsDodwell and Atkins, the local is more difficult (although the blue hat might suggesr a

71

72

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

!-qli..t:i:,: ,' t, , :.:i:,.]::1i

,tli:: ' ., : : ', ii:i:i]::i::

l-]:ii:iiii+::i

Drawing of two pedimental pieces (Vest N and Q), Feodor lvanowitch, r8or,London, British Museum (G&RA)

ingly deep diggings that Hunt and Lusieri record in their letters, the house of the

Turkish janissary is nowhere to be seen. Furthermore, one of the fragments inGeI1's picture suggests the Iris from the west pediment, figure N, while the other

might bc the draped legs of figure Q (iig. z).

Both Dodwell and Gell were, of course, on the Acropolis at this time. Dodwellnotes that he himself was present when these sculptures were excava,.d zl, whileGell gives a ful1er record of this work, as he wandered round the site sketching :

"\flith regard to the triumph of Minerva which was once on the western

pediment we had an opportunity of seeing many of its mutilated re-

mains. The Venetians under Morosini attempting to remove the figures

loosened them only and faiied in the endeavour. The consequence was

that after some years they hung over in a dangerous manner and were

Greek, he is not dressed in the tall black hat of an Archon as Logotheti would have been; the

Disdar is shown seated and sn'roking a pipe in Dodwel['s view of the interior of the Propylaia,

DoDvELL Viei;:s in Greece, pl.7).Doolr,rr, TourI,3zq.

,-){$i.\ 1-\-J

DYFRI \flILLIAN{S

forced down by the Turks in order to prevent any accident. When we

were at Athens they were dug up from the place where they fe11 and

sent to England by the Ambassador.z+"

Gell went on to describ e the t687 explosion inside the Parthenon zi. It is perhaps

of interest to record the story of this tragic event as it was being told at the verybeginning of the nineteenth century :

"...the Turks were compelled to use it for a time as amagaz;ne for pow-der. A bombardment ensuing, the women and children took shelter inthe temple which having a roof of marble seemed the most safe place.

The roof was in square compartments and was entire except that a fewof the exterior stones having been removed had left one or two littlesquare holes open to the sky. Ill fortune carried into one of these a

Venetian bomb which bursting in the midst, the magazine, the poorwomen, the children and the Temple all blew up together..."

Following this explosion, which killed some Joo women and children, the build-ing burnt fiercely for two days before the Turks surrendered 76.

Besides working in front of the west facade of the Parthenon, Lusieri's team also

took down a piece of the cornice of the Erechtheum 77. This would seem to be the

first officially aurhorised removal of a piece of architecture from one of the build-ings on the Acropolis. It is possible that in doing this Hunt was deliberatelybeginning to test the Voivode's interpretatio n of the firman, or at least how firmlythe Disdar would keep to the interpretation that the Voivode had accepted on the

occasion of their meeting on Juiy z3'd.

:i

Gl.t-l-'s Diary, 64. It seems unlikely that the explosion did much damage to the sculptures inthe west pediment, especially since so little d:rmege was done to those in the east pedimentdespite the destmction of the east end of the cella - indeed, Fanelli's sketch shows the archi-tecture stili intact (Parthenon, 168, iig. 6). Most of the damage to the sculpture must have

been the work of Morosini, trying to remove the "Zeus" (ie. Poseidon) and the horses ofAthena (see letter to Doge, MICHAELIS, Partbenon,347), followed by the activities of the

Turks. Michaelis Parthenon "Hilfstafel" with p. r9r repeats Dalton's engravings from t749with parts of figures H and M on the pediment floor and two other pieces on the ground(perhaps missing parts of L and M).GEr-r-'s Diary, 65-66. For a discussion of the contemporary sources, see T.E. MOMMSEN,

American Journal of Arcbeology 4t O94r), j 44- t 55.See alsc, now A. SACCONI, L'aooenturaarcbeologica di Francesco Morosini ad Atene (r687-r688), Rome, r99r.For Morosini's despatches mentioning the death of 3oo Turks and the two complete days ofburning see MICHAELIS, Parthenon, 34j-46.Hunt's letter,3r" July r8or. For Lusieri's work on the Erechtheum see STEVENS

Erecbtheum, rr3 fn.l and 597-598.

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

Lusieri's artists were very busy on the Acropolis at this time, for we learn from

his accounts of the frequent moving of the scaffoiding on which Feodor the

Calmuck worked /8. Furthermore, there was clearly some moulding also going

on, for the accounts record payments on r8'hJuly "for moving the mould on

several occasions", on 29t1'July "for pieces of iron to put in a mouid at the temple

of Minerva", and on 3o'1'July "for wine given to the men for carrying a mould".Thrs work on the Parthenon naturally involved the construction of ladders and

from Lusieri's accounts we hear of "wood for the ladders" on r5'hJuly, "rope totie the big steps for the metopes" on r StLJuly, "wood for the ladders" on z6'1'Ju1y,

and " z planks of wood on which to rest the large ladder for the metopes" on z6'h

July. This "large ladder" or "big steps" must be the long ladder seen in a sketch by

Villiam Gell to which we shall return (fig l). It enabled access to the superstruc-

ture at the east end of the temple (at the west end access was made easier by means

of the spiral staircasc added when the buiiding was a church). This suggests that

the Calmuck had already begun drawing the eastern series of south metopes by

the middie of July, a week before FIunt arrived.

TUE t tRst r\(/o METopES ARE REMovED - Aucusr r 8or

It was only onJrl), Ir" that Eigin's men first climbed on to the Parthenon in

order to remove sculpture from the building itself - the team consisted of the

ship's carpenter and t crew, helped on the ground by zo Greeks. Their first targets

were the South Metopes with Laprths fighting centaurs) for not only were these

the best preserved, but it was also from this side that the French had in the late

r78os acquired two examples, apparently recently fallen from the buiiding, while

J.B.S. Moritt had endeavoured in r795 to secure one that was clearly loose 7e.

As Hunt described in his letter of July 3 r ", thc team took one down that day and

planned to take the next on the foliowing day so. But which metopes were these ?

As we have seen, the fact that the long ladder had recently been constructed im-

plies that Lusieri's team were already working on the east end of the building,

78 Lusieri accounts forJuly rz'l', ry'h, l8'l', z7'l',3r"'and August 3'd and 5'1'. There were three

further moves in August and another five in December, all recorded through the accounts. Itwould seem likely that the Calmuck was moving aLong the south series of metopes and that

he was just ahead of the removals when they began at the east end at the end of Jul1. (see

beiow).7e Select Com, 52.8o Hunr letter, 3r July, r8or : part, SNliTH, 196;pe,rt ST. CLAIR LEMr,92. Lusieri's eccounts

record payment to r4 men on Augr.rst r" to "lower bas-reiief", as well as extra wood for the

same purPose.

r23

Dvrnt \Wtlrr,ttvts

3. View of south-east corner of Parthenon, \William Gell, r8or, London, BritishMuseum (G6.RA)

most probably drawing the well-preserved metopes on the south side. Fortu-nately a series of sketches and watercolours by Atkins, Ge1l and Dodwell al1ow us

to reconstruct the sequence of events. These drawings are, in fact, referred to in a

letter written by Hunt to Elgin on Augusr z r't :

"Messrs Dodwell, Geil and Atkins have been here above six weeks, and

they request me to present their thanks for the firmans Your Lordshiphas been so good as to forward to them. Since my arrival they have had

full liberty to enter the Citadel at all hours, and as they are Dilettanrithey almost live in the Ruins of the Parthenon. They have sketched'currente calama'. I believe they will be able to shew Your Lordshipabove fifty views of the Acropolis and the City.8'"

8' Gell's r8or sketches are gathered in aibum no. r3 in the Department of Greek and RomanAntiquities of the British Museum. Most of Dodwell's works are divided between two pri-vate collections. There are four amateurish views by Atkins in the Benaki Museum in Athens(inv. 2339-234).

t24

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

Atkins has lefr us a view of the sourh side and east end. Al1 the sculpture is still in

p1ace, metopes and pedimental figures alike, and there is no activity by Lusieri

and his team. Gell's sketch of the south-east corner of the temple, however, shows

the long wooden ladder (put together in the middie of 1uly) reaching up from

inside the east end to the back of the pediment and a wooden sledge hanging from

the geison and cantilevered against the building (fig ;) 8'. Frank Brommer, who

first published this drawing, described the sledge as a Hiingegerust'. tt is clearly

too insubstantial ever to have actually been used to remove sculpture from the

building and would oniy have got in the way during such an oPeration. It is rather

a platform from which Fe odor must have worked and is the scaffolding or bridge

(il ponte) referred to frequently in Lusieri's accounts for July and August when-

ever it had to be moved.

M.R. Bruce, however, has tried ro connecr this Gell drawing with Lusieri's re-

moval of the first metope by i11-advisedly assuming that the wooden sledge was

intended to be used to remove a heavy sculpture 61. In his r998 edition, St Clair

borrowed and dramatised Bruce's interpretation :

"And so, che vital twist to the firman was given. A sketch made by

\7il1iam Gell in rhe evening light of that dav Llrly : rl, reproduced as

Plate 3, shows that the seventh metoPe [South z6] has already gone, but

the sixth [South z7) was sti11 in position with a block of the cornice

above. The next day the cornice block was thrown to the ground and

the sixth metope removed. In Gell's picture the Disdar can be seen wag-

ging his finger at Lusieri, presumably in protest. Lusieri his arms

folded, ieans nonchalantly against a column, unmoved by the Disdar's

Pleas' 8+"

In reading St Clair's imaginative reconstruction of the circumstances of the sketch

and its conrexr) one should note first of all that Geli's sketch clearly shows all of

the metopes still in place on the building . Pace St. Clair, Lusieri's team had not

even begun its removal work. Secondly, the dress of the two figures seemingly

arguing on a wall nearby indicates that neither of them was Lusieri (he would

have been in European dress, as Balestra and Ittar in Gell's sketch of the

Erechtheum) tr ,-ro. even probably the Disdar (he would have been represented in

3' BROMMER Metopen,zz3.8j M.R. Br ;CE,Journal of Hellenic Studies 9z (t972), ry3-t75.81 ST. CLArR LEMr, 93 (my square brackets).sr Gell'ssketch:StEvrNsEreclrtheutn,55o,f\g.zzr;ST.CLAIRZE,41,pl.V;CoorElginMar-

bles,, 7z fig. 69. The identification o{ the f igure with the umbrella as Lusieri (apwd Sr. Clair)

is unlikely.

T'<

DvrnI \Vttr-ralrs

grander costume, as in Dodwell's viezp of the Bazar). Such figures are frequentlyadded in Gel1's rapid sketches, employing similar gestures, and rarely have pur-pose other than scale and iocal colour.Here, howevet we should rurn ro Dodwell's warercolour in the collection ofLord Eigin (fig +)

86. \flritten in the margin below the picture is "E.D. Firsr roursouth east v[iew] of the Parthenon". The view is roughly the same as Gell's,although Dodweil has left our rhe long iadder and a srone wall that ran norrh tosouth, presumably in order to give a less encumbered aspect of the temple, but hasadded the figure of the Disdar, seated smoking his pipe sz. This warercolourshows the same wooden sledge hanging from the cornice and cantilevered againstthe architrave as in Gell's sketch, but now it is centred on South Metope 29, whileon the ground we can recognise south Metope 26. one might, like St. c1air, betempted to wonder whether Lusieri's team also removed a piece of cornice at thesame time, and that it is to be seen on the ground next ro the metope. A compari-son, however, with both earlier and later views reveals not only that Gell consid-erably restored this b1ock, which was never much more than a fragment, but thatit stayed on the building for at le ast the remainder of the nineteenth cenrury sE.

The presence of this watercolour in Lord Elgin's collection suggests that it wasgiven to him as a memento of the securing of the first piece of sculpture from theParthenon, possibiy as a means of recording Dodwell's and Gell's gratitude forthe provision of afirman that allowed them to work so freely on the Acropolis inthe summer of r 8or. Dodwell and Gel1, a{rcr a rrip to Eleusis in August, were roleave Athens for Constantinople on the evening of Seprember l5 ,1, sr.

Judging from Ge11's and Dodwell's images, rherefore, we should assume tharSouth Metope z6 was taken down on July 3 r". Hunt's letter to Lord Elgin notesthat they removed "one of the Statues or Groupes in the Metopes represenring a

combat between a youth (probably Theseus) and a centaur; it has long been theadmiration of the world (...) A second which adjoins it, on the same subject, is tofollow tomorrow...." Hunt's later letter to Mrs Hamilton Nisbet in r8o5 has a

more expansive description : "The sub;'ect of the sculpture appears to be Theseusor his friend Pirithous victorious over a Hippo-Cenraur : tl-re attirude of the Hero

S6

87

83

This picture has been mentior-red by St. clair, but not discussed (sT. CLAIR LEM, to3 fn;LEM:, 357 fn. zo). I am very grateful to Lord Elgin for showing it to me.This figure matches that in Dodwell's view of the interior of the propvlaia : Doovr.LL,Vieus in Greece, pl. 7 (with text).For earlier views see Richard Dalton (Parthenon,tTa, fig. 9) and J.D. LE I.or (parthenon,17z,fig. I3) ; the view by Atkins of the south side and easr corner ir-r the Benaki Museum aisoshows it as a mere fragment. Among later views see a rgro photograph by Mevdenbauer,Parthenon r95, fig, 56.GzrlsDiary,Tg and97.

rz6

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENoN SCULPTURES

,i;i,,r*,'iffi

4. View of soutl'r-east corner of Parthenon, Edward Dodwell, r 8ol, Lord Elgin,Broomhall

strongly reminded me of the Beividere [slc] Apollo, by the boldness and drgnitywith which it seems to be advancing... ro" This might suggest that the first metope

removed was actually South Metop e 27 not z6,brt it is more likely that in deten-

tion in Pau FIunt's memory focussed on the piece that had attracted many others,

including Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Nisbet. The second metope was presumablyremoved on August I", with Hunt leaving on August z"d for his tnp into centrai

Greece. The packing of the two metopes and their transport proved difficult, ena-

bling Hunt to spend longer on his trip than initially planned, only returning three

weeks later er.

FeuvEr- AND CHoTSEUL-GouFrER

These two metopes seem to have been the very first pieces of sculpture to be

taken off the Parthenon with the full permission of the Ottoman authorities.Hunt, however, records in his report of July 3, r" that the Disdar's son had toid

9t

Letter of zo'l' February r 8oy from Pau (the second part of this section was edited out of the

published version, Nisbet Letters, 33o).SMITH, zoo.

DYFRr \flrr-r.rAMs

him that Choiseul-Gouffier had paid 8oo piastres for "the Metope which ad-joined these" but that "it was taken down with so litrle skill, thar the rope broke,and it was dashed into a thousand fragments" e'. If we were to foilow Hunt'srecord of this story litera1ly then "adjoined" should mean that it was Southmetope z5 that was being referred to. It is clear, however, from earlier views ofthis part of the temple that South metope z5 had been destroyed either in the

explosion of fi87 or sometime in the first half of the eighteenth century er. [6

might be supposed, therefore, that the story was a malicious fiction, perhaps

loosely based on Fauvel's secret acquisition of South metope 6, which he reportedhad been blown off the building in a storm (iee below) ea. In the end, however, weonly have Fauvel's word against that of the Disdar's son as to the exact circum-stances of the fall of this metope from the Parthenon. The Drsdar's son may wellhave been anxious to please Hunt with the story, but Fauvel couid equally ha.re

wished to conceal the damage he had done to one of his patron's potenrial sculp-tures, while Hunt who never saw South metop e 5 may not have realised that thedegree of destruction had been exaggerated (as well as, perhaps, the "price").Moreover, some years later E,dward Hawkins recorded an additional detail,namely that after the accident Fauvel had to send to Toulon ro ger berter rope and

tackle (this equipment later passed, aiong with a cart, to Lusreri) si. Finally, one

might perhaps note that even Dodwell implies that one metope was broken as

Fauvel tried to remove it and Dodwell came to know Fauvel well on his second

visit to Athens in r8o5 16.

The Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier's instructions in the r78os to his agent, Fauvel,had been very forceful and may well have 1ed the latter to employ extreme means:" Enlevez tout ce qwe'uous pourrez (...), ne n6gligez aucune occasion de piller darus

Athines et dans son territoire tout ce qu'il y a de pillable (...), n'1pargnez ni les

morts ni les '7)ioants" et.In t786, according to Lady E,lisabeth Craven, Fauvel un-successfully artempted to remove a metope) seemingly from the building itself s8.

e' Seealso Memorandwm,gandHunt'sletterof zothFebruary t8o5,NisbetLetters,33t,er Eg. Richard Dalton's view: Parthenon , t7o {ig. 9.e+ PH.-E. LEGRAND, Reoue Archdologique z6 (t895), 237-239 and Ret,ue Archlologique 3o

(rBSl), SZ. See also Sr,tttH, r96 and 357"et E. HAY/KINS, Description of Ancient 14arble in the Britisb Museum vIII, London, r839,97.

This information came from a letter of Elgin to Hamilron, z7'h Mty 1839.e6 DODv/ELL Tour 1, 324.e7 Ph.-E. LEGRAND, Reaue Arcbiologique 3o (rBSl), Sl; also quoted in St. Cr-atn LEM:,63.e8 LADY Er-tsaartu CRAVEN, A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople in a Series of

Letters from tbe Right HonourabLe Ladl Elisabetb Crat,en to His Serene Highness tbeMargraae of Brandebourg, \Yritten in the Year r786, London, t789, z6t (letter V): she men-tions "sailors .. prepared with cranes". Choisel-Gouffierwrore to Fauvel on z.d August r786suggesting the removal of "quelques beaux bas-reliefs" and "une Caryatide": Ph.-E.LEGRAND, Reoue Archiologique z5 (r894),33 n" r.

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..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

It was not until early r788, therefore, that the first of two metopes from the Par-

thenon was eventually secured for Choiseul-Gouffier (South ro) r. 16. acquisi-

tion of the second (South 6) was described by Fauvel in his diary in December ofthat year '"'. Finally, onJanuary z5'h r789,Fauvel excavated part of an East friezesiab under much debris at the east end of the temple 'o'.

Tvo rr,roRs MEtopps AND E.D. Cr-aRrE - NovEMBER r8or

On August z2"d Hunt returned to pick up Lusieri from Atheins once the latter had

made safe all the sculptures that had been acquired. Lusieri returned alone fromthis trip with Hunt on October 4'1'and on the following day began excavations on

the south srde of the Parthenon in search of the metopes that had fallen from the

temple in the explosion of 1687'"'. They seem, however, only to have foundfrieze fragments. At this time Lusieri was aiso negotiating for two more metopes

still on the building ("not so well preserved"). One was removed on November

7'\ and the second had come down by November t7't"o3.These metopes

(Lusieri's 3'd and 4d'; *i11 have been from the western series of South metopes

(presumably South 9 and 8, which are shown in Geil's sketch and in Fauvel's

model as being unencumbered by cornice; South ro, as we have seen, had been

acquired by Fauvel in r788) 'o4. A separate note in both Lusieri's and Logotheti'saccounts records a payment on November roth "to Disdar for the two last

metopes contracted by Lusieri, piastres 45o" (these are presumably those taken

on August r" and November 7'l';for the very first metope taken onJuly 3 r" there

was no payment of money to the Disdar, only presents from Hunt).

ee PH.-E. LEGRAND, Re.owe Archiologique z5 (r 894), z8 and Reoue Archiologiqwe z6 (t895),

238. The report of this acquisition was by Gaspari, French Consul in Athens, who said that

he had got it from the Disdar.Ph.-E. LrcnaND, Reoue Archdologiqwe z5 Q891, z9.By a quirk of history South 5 was

capturedatseabyLordNelsonandeventuailypassedtoLordElgin-seeSMITH,3j7-j65.Ph.-E. LrcnaND, Reoue Archdologique z5 $891, 3t and Reoue Arch1ologique z6 $895),237 ; see also Reoue Arcb dologique 3o Q897),5 8. Fauvel seems to have first secured permis-

sion to dig on the Acropolis in ry86: Pu.-8. LEGRAND, ReL,ue Arcbiologique 3o (t897), 5o

fn. r (letter of Foucherot, 3'd October r786).

Lusieri letteq October.z 5'h; men begin to be employed from October 7'h (Lusieri accounts).

These dates derive from payments to men for lowering metopes recorded in Lusieri's ac-

counts.

The supposition that Lusieri had now started to take metopes from the west end o{ the

south series is essentially based on the more explicit evidence concerning the removals of the

other eastern metopes that is revealed later in the story.

rcl

129

DYFRI \VILLIAMS

It is here that we should perhaps re-examine an often repeated story told by E.D.Clarke, who arrived in Athens on October 29,1, r 8o r ,o,. That very day he went upon Lusieri's scaffolding and was able to see some of the frieze and meropes 106.

Elsewhere, he also reporrs that while Lusieri's men were preparing to remove a

metope, the Disdar himself came "ro view the work but wirh evident marks ofdissatisfaction" and as a metope was raised a part of "the adjoining masonry-wasloosened (...) and down came the fine masses of Pentelican marble, scattering theirwhire fragments with thundering noise among the ruins", so that the Disdar "ac-tua1ly took his pipe from his mourh, and letting fall a rear, said in a most emphatictone of voice re/os" 'o-.

From Clarke's Traaels we see that the only other day after that of his arrival (oc-tober z9'h) on which he might have witnessed such work was November 4,1,,

when he went up on the Acropolis with Lusieri. After the embarrassment of en-tering the women's baths by mistake, howe.,er, he spent the rest of the day copy-ing inscriptions and made no mention of Lusieri's work" on the next day he leftfor a trip to Aegina, the Peloponnese and Eleusis, only returning to Athens onNovember r 8'L in order to beg Lusieri's help in gaining permission to remove thecolossal bust of Ceres at Eleusis 'o8. clarke returned triumphant from Eleusis onNovember z4th but left again on the 3o,1, with Lusieri for a trip to Marathon.Lusieri and Clarke parted company on December 3'd with I-usieri returning rowork at Athens and Ciarke heading north for Thebes and Thessaloniki.It is c1ear, therefore, rhat aithough Clarke may have seen some preparatory workon November 4'h, he never acrually witnessed rhe removal of a metope, despitehis claim to that effect in a letter to Lord Byron following the first publication ofchilde Harold'oe. Clarke, of course, having passed his fictitious descriprion on toLord Byron then incorporared it into his own rravel book. St. Clair was surelyright when he once said of clarke that "there was no limit to the slanders he wasprepared ro tel1' rIo.

'ot CLARKE Tracels vol. z, z, q83; see SIr,flTu, z3z {n. t33.

'o6 CLARKE Tra"tek vol. 6, z4z. The scaffolding was probablv being erected to remove themetope that was taken down on November 7,h.

'o7 CLARKE Traoeb vol. 6, zz3-224.rct This bust is shown stlll in situ in sketches by Geii and Dodwell of August r 8o r. Lusieri gave

Clarke one of his stock of English teiescopes (provided by Lord Elgin) to use as a gift tohelp secure the sculpture.

'oe For E.D. Clarke's letter to Byron see Byron's nore to Childe Harold. II, xti: The \york.s ofLord, Byron, Poetry tol. II,E.H. CoLERTDGE. (ed.), London, t899, 17z.

"" ST.CLAIRIEl4r,T5.Itisir-rterestingtonotehowinthefirstandsecondeditionsofhisbookSt. Clair is aware of and ready to acknowledge the unreliability of Clarke's tesrimonl,,whereas in his third edition he omits all criticism of Clarke, who is thus allowed to slanderElgin unrebuked - Sr. Cl-trr. LEMr, r02-ro3.

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..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

LoRo Er-cIN,s VrsiT to ATUENS AND THE FIGURES IIROU TUr, EAST

Pr.onrr,Nt-SPRING r8oz

We can return to the story of the removal of the metopes in March of the next

year, r8oz. Between March z6'l' and the 3 r" we find payments for the preparation,

removal and transport of two metopes (Lusieri's 5th and 6'1'), presumably South 7

and 5, since South 6 had been taken by Fauvel (as discussed above). South y was

unencumbered with cornice according to Fauvel's model and South Z seems to

have only had a fragment above it.

Lord Elgin paid his first visit to Athens in Aprii r8oz, arriving on April J'd, to-

gether with his wife, their children and their doctor. During this period Lusieri

not only removed another metope, as his accounts for r9'h April reveal (his 7tL

metope; probably South 4), but also very probably discussed future plans withLord Elgin and used his prcscnce to assure the acquisition of other important

pieces. Elgin set out on a tour of the Peloponnese on May 3'd and during his

absence Lusieri secured the four relief slabs from the Tempie of Athena Nike that

had been built into the bastion and began to prepare to remove picces from the

E,ast Pediment of the Parthenon "'. The first was probably the famous head ofone of the horses from the chariot of Selene (figure O), which was brought downbefore Lord Elgin returned on Ma;, r 5th

rr:. A heavy group of two draped figures

(presumably figures L and M) was taken down before Lord Elgin left again on

May r9'l'for a second trip, this time to Boeotia "l. As usual, payment for these

acquisitions was made to the Disdar by Lusieri after all the operations were fin-ished "+. it had been intended that Lord Elgin's second trip should last three

weeks and take in loannina, but it was curtailed for some reason. Some five days

afcer his return, the second group of two figures was removed from the East pedi-

ment (presumably figures E and F; "t.During Lord Elgin's time in Athens Lusieri also excavated at the east end of the

Parthenon, having secured from Constantinople, with Lord Elgin's personal

help, permission to remove the house of an old Turk "6. This work was under-

III Lusieri letters of M.y Z'h and ro'h.

"' ST. CLAIR LEMI, ra7 claims that Elgin was present, but this is not correct. In Elgin's ab-

sence, Lady E1gin set its packing in train: SMITH, zt7 ;Nisbet Letters, t96.

"j Lusieriaccounts:Mayrz'l',"heavyhempropetolowerstatue"wasbought;Mayt8'l',"22men to lower the group".

"+ Lusieriaccounts:Mayz3'd,rooopiastres,"foragreeingtoletmehavethe,lbas-reliefsfromthe Temple of Victory and some figures from the pediment of the Parthenon".

"i Lusieriaccounts:3r'iMay"bro,,rghtdownthegroup{romthepediment";zo'1'Junepay-ment of 7oo piastres "for having the other figures from the pediment of the Parthenon".

"6 LusieriletterMayro'l'; Lusieri'saccounts,zr"Manalsorecordapaymenttoa"womanatthe fortress whose house demolished in order to excavate". Lord Elgin recalls the process -Memorandum, t5-t6; Select Com, t9.

IJI

DYFRI \iflILLIAMS

taken in the mistaken beiief that the sculptures in the centre of the East pedimenthad been blown out by the explosiono{ t687, as at the West end. They had, ofcourse) been thrown down much earlier, when an apse was added to the Christianchurch "z, and had presumably been reduced to lime to facilitate that or laterbuilding work, as the Turkish janissaries on the Acropolis seem to have known tojudge by their laughter when the excavations proved fruitless.

Haurr-toN IN ATHENS - SUMMER r8o2

On June z4'l' Eigin's party left Athens for Constantinople by ship, visitingSounion and Kea, before meeting V.R. Hamilton at Marathon, as he made his

way to Athens. On July 7'h Hamilton called on the Voivode (this was, of course, a

different Voivode from the one that Hunt had dealt with the previous summer)

and later that day Raschid Aga, the Mub)shir, visited him too and permission was

given to remove the seated statue of Dionysos from the Thrasyllos monument "8.It is worth noting not only that the Mubishir's continued support of the work ofElgin's team, but aiso that no payment was made to the Voivode. OnJuly ro'1'the"statue of Bacchus [was] brought down" and on the same day Hamilton left for a

tour of central Greece "e. Flamilton was back in Athens on August 7'h and wroteto Elgin on the next day that they had discovered a fine piece of the North frieze.Hamilton left again only on August z6th, this time for the Peloponnese, after a

bout of fever, also suffered by the Mubishir, and was not back in Athens untilafter September Sth - he was certainly back by the rz'h. Between the 9'h and the

rz'h Lusieri secured two more metopes "o. One of these is actually referred to byhim as the'(8th metope", thus helping to confirm the sequence set out above "'.Lusieri describes it as showing a centaur carrying off a woman, so that we mayalso be certain that it was South 29. He adds in his letter to Eigin of September

r6'h t8oz that "this piece has caused much trouble in all respects, and t have been

obliged to be a little barbarous". From Lusieri's accounts we see that on Septem-

ber rzth he paid the men z extrapiastres "for working dangerously above corniceof metope". tWhat Lusieri is probablv referring to is the loss of the cornice slab

"7 See M. KORRES, in: Parthenon, r46-t48.II8 It had lost its head in t6T6,according to CuaNDLr.R Traoels,66: BM Cat Sculpture 432. The

rest of the monument was completely destroyed in t8z7 during the Greek tiTar of Inde-pendence,seeJ.TR,wLos,PictorialDictionaryof AncientAthens,London, t97t,552-555.

"e SMITH, zz6; Lusieri accountsJuly ro'l'.

"" Lusieri accounts) September 9'h : "to lower metope" and "to the gate for taking fid out" (4piastres).

"' The other, South 28, is referred to in the accounts for u 8'h September, togerher with South

29.

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..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND TI.II, PARTHENON SCULPTURES

View of south-east corner of Parthenon, G.B.Gallery of Scotland

Lusieri, r 8o3, Edinburgh, National

over South 29. Thrs loss can be seen from his beautiful watercolour in the Na-tional Gallery of Scotland that shows South metopes z8 and 29 gone) but South

lo-12 still in place (fig. t) "'.A number of other pieces are mentioned in Lusieri's accounts for September z8'h,

in addition to the last two metopes, and a1l may well have been acquired whileHamilton was stil1 in Athens. These include three capitals, one of them being

National Gallery of Scotland D (NG) 7ro : ST. CLLIr. LEM], pl. q; Designs of Desire : Ar-chitectaral and Ornamental Prints and Drati,ings r5oo-t85o, f'. ClIrrono (ed.), Edin-burgh, r999, n' r43 (A. Weston-Lewis). This drawing used to be attributed to Lady MaryRuthven on the basis of the inscription on the back, until it was re-attributed by the present

Lord Elgin to Lusieri. Smith (z3z fn. r33) was inclined ro combine the damage to whichLusieri refers with that described by E.D. Clarke (see above, with Cl,tRnE Traoels vol. z, z,

a83). This may well be the case, but if it is, Clarke's reporr was nor based on direct knowl-edge.

rll

DvnRt lWrr-t.tair'rs

from the Propylaia "i. On September r 5th Hamilton sailed on board the Mentorwith a large consignment of sculptures. Lusieri's packing list of r4'l'Septembercontains some Io pieces from the frieze and an angle piece (perhaps S XLVII / E I,part) I24. These pieces must have been those excavated by Lusieri's team aroundthe temple or removed from later walls and structures. The list also contains the

great central frieze slab from the east, in two pieces, which Lusieri had receivedpermission to remove from a parapet wall c,n the south side of the Acropolis "i.The breakage is mentioned in Lusieri's letter of the r rth - "not being well sawn,

for want of sufficiently fine saws, and being a little weak in the middle it parted intwo in course of transport, in spite of all precdutions taken. Happily it broke inthe middle, in a straight line, at a place where there was no work" "6. One shouldremember, of course, that this block had been removed from the temple when an

enlarged apse was constructed) perhaps in the twelfth century (its regular shape

presumably saved it from the lime kiln), while all the rest of the E,ast frieze was

blown from the building in the explosion of r687. The device of sawing the backoff the frieze blocks to save weight had already been employed by Fauvel whenhe secured his slab of the East frieze{or Choiseul-Gouffier (now in the Louvre)and in so doing damaged the heads "7. The fragments broken off the heads wereshipped to France with the slab, but are said to have been subsequently losr "s. Asfor the sections of marble that were sawn from the backs of this and other blocks,many have now been recognised on the ground on the south side of the Parthe-

" j Lusieri accounts record 5 Bo piastres "to Disdar for 2 metopes, piece of soffit of Erechtheum,Propylaia capital, z capitals from his house" on September z8'h. On the z4'h the moving oithe capitals and a big inscription to the store is noted. See Lusieri's Ietter of October 4'h -SMITH, z33.The Propylaia capital is, of course, BM Cat Sculpture,433. The two capitals

from the Disdar's house are also referred to in Lusieri's letter of October 4'h as Corinthianand from "the old Chapel near the Stadium" : they are BM Cat Scwlpture 2t7r and 2575.

,:4 SMITH,2]I.

'" Noted there by CuaNor-lx Traoels, ;3 and X. SCROFANI, Volage en Gr,)ce, Paris, r 8or ,

vol. II, r o4- r o 5 (in ry 94- 5); see also M emorandum, zz. For its history see also BROMMER

Metopen, rt5-rr5; L. BtscuI, in'. Partbenon-Kongress,3zo with fn. rz and p|. 56, z

(Fauvel's sketch o{ it still immured). It is easier to understand from the drawing in situbyThomas Hope: Hope, 97 no 29 (a small plain pilaster covers the figure of Athena). Hamil-ton's letter to Elgin of 9'h December r 8oz, in connection with the w reck ol the M en o,,, notes

that the relief came from the "south wall of the Acropolis", see Sl'ltTu, 248.

''6 Slltru,233.''7 PH.-E. LEGRAND, Rez,ue Archdologique z5 (r894),3r,and Reoue Arcbdologique z6(r895),

237- "heads splintered b1'the clumsiness of those that sawed it..."; this damage is recorded

in Fauvel's memoire of r 8ol, but is not mentioned in his journal. For an earlier example ofsuch sawing see CHANDLExTraoek, 58.

''8 A.H. SltITH, A Guid.e to the Sculptures of the Parthenon, London, r9o8, 82.

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..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

non or built into the interior of the restored north flank wali and have been recov-

ered "9.Sadln the Mentor, Lord Elgin's own brig, was to sink just outside the modern

fishing port of Avlemonas on the rocky east coast of the isiand of Kythera on

September r7'h')o. The salvage of the antiquities that had been on board was a

long and expensive operation, but, thanks to the determination of Hamilton, itwas eventually completed by the summer of i 8o4 with total success 'l'.

Tur, Rr,uovaI- oF THE FRTPZP BEGINS - AUTUMN 1802

Lusieri's letter of October 4'h in addition to reporting some of the recent acquisi-

tions and the intention of going for one of the Parthenon capitals, whrch wouldhave to be sawn in half to get it through the gatewan advised the sending of "a

firman for the Disdar, in which everything that he has done for your Excellency is

approved. It is a paper that you promised him before you left Athens". This re-

quest seems to have been prompted by problems with Prince Dolgorouki who

was refused permission to draw on the Acropolis by the Disdar 'r'. Dolgorouki,however, not only made trouble for the Disdar in August but also went on to turnthe Calmuck's head. At the same time, Lusieri was also having problems with a

certain Dr. Andr6 Mertroud 'll. These disturbances by the French have to be seen

against the news that Gaspari, the expelled French Vice-Consul, and Fauvel were

known to be about to return as Commissary and Under Commissary. Lord Elgin

promprly sent letters from the Yizier for each of the Athenian officials together

with other documents 'la.

Eigin had also secured from the Neapolitan Minister in Constantinopie permis-

sion for Lusieri to continue working in Athens for him (he was technically sti1l

attached to the court of the King of the Two Sicilies). This, together perhaps with

119 Tocai.uoEs io', Restoration za, p.rzz and izo, records 6 sections sawn from the backs of

south frieze blocks and many more from the north frieze. See also KORRES, in:. Restoration

za, p. 64 fn. +9 - the piece noted as having been reused as a well-head and now near the Stoa

of Attalos is perhaps from the back of the Louvre slab, which Fauvel complained was being

taken over by Lusieri (PH.-E. LEGRAND, Reoue Arch6olctgique z6 [r89y],238).For a full description of the wreck and the salvage see StrtITu, z4o-25 z,254,258-26o.

For Lusieri's list o{ antiquities on board the Mentor see SMITH, z3 I.Lusieri letters of August 3o'h and September 8'h r 8oz : see SMITH, 229-zia.

Suttu,233-234. Dr. Mertroud was a relation by marriage, the doctor and friend of

Logotheti and was already proving troublesome in August rSoz : Lusieri letter 3o'h August

r8oz;Sl,ttTu, z3o. For drawings of his house see Haller oon Hallerstein in Greichenland

tSto-r8r7, H. BANKEL (ed.), Berlin, t986, t67-r68.

Sruitu, z;5 ; letters received by Lusieri and acknowledged in his letter of October z8'h.

r jo

rlr

rl:

rli

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r)5

DYFRI \WILLIA}vIS

preparatory work by Flamilton, gave Lusieri a new lease of life. It was now, in theautumn of r8oz, that he seems to have begun to take frieze slabs from off theParthenon itself, instead of excavating them from beneath the debris that sur-rounded the temple 'lt. Lusieri's comment, once rhe process was begun, was that"this is the quickest way to excavate here, all that is found beneath these hugemasses (of stone) is completeiy ruined" '16. Ve hear from his accounts that onNovember r4'h he made a payment "to Disdar for taking and bringing down y

pieces of frieze" (z8o piastres). Lusieri's letters and reporrs to Elgin of Novembert6'h, z4'h and z8tL mention this continuous run of some five siabs of the frreze'Jt.These must be from the North frieze (the Souih frieze is clearly taken later - see

below) and from the sequence of r r slabs that were still on the building (NorthXXxVIi-xLVu; their presence on rhe building is to be assumed from Feodor'sdrawings of them and from Gell's views of the inside of the temple (figs. 6-7) ; it islikely that this first group taken was North xxxfrr-xlr). It is difficult to deter-mine just how much of the frieze was overlaid here by thranos blocks, but Ge11's

sketch of Fauvel's model suggesrs thar nothing was preserved above Northxxxvll-xl- (fig. 8) ';s.

HuNr iN ATHENS AND THE END oF EI-ctN's El,reassy - \(/TNTER r 8oz-r 8o3

By November 2r" or zz"d Hunt was back in Athens and work recommenced onthe East pediment. On December r 2'h Lusieri's accounts record a payment of r 5 y

piastres to the Disdar for a "nude figure taken from pediment of the Parthenon" -this must have been the so-ca11ed Herakles or Theseus from the East pediment(East fig. D) 'ri.

';r Lusieri's letter of October z8'l'records that Feodor had finished all his drawings of thefrieze. ST CLALR (LEM|,Io8) mistakenly assumes that Lusieri had already got zo slabs offrieze from the building by June z"d.

'j6 Lusieri letteq r6'h November r8oz.

'r7 Lusieritletterofr6'l'Novembermentionsthenumber6,buttheaccountsforr4,hNovem-ber and the letters for z4'h and z8'l'November give the number as y. StrttTu, z3B mista-kenly repeats the number as 6.

'r8 M. KORRES,irr: Parthenon, r56 with fn. r3r seems to assume that a1l was covered. Gell'sown two sketches of the interior (figs. 5-7)are not really accurare as to the number ofcourses preserved or the arrangement of the blocks of the north cella wal1. TocaNrors, in:Restoration za, p. t za and r z 5, notes that two thranos blocks remain substantially complete,while fragments of ro more are also presen ed (representing c. two-thirds of the total lengthof the whole north wall).

'rs This can be determined from the {act that a case containing a "figura d'uomo sedenre" was

put on board the Braakel in early r 8o3 (1ist of cases preser-ved in Department of Greek and

Roman Antiquities).

r)6

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD EI-CIN ATO THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

6. Vicw of interior of Parthenon, looking east, Villiam Gell, r8oi, London, Britisl.r

Museurn (GE RA)

i-l *#i:.]:iiu

'"r jj1:\€.

i.-jl4i'"i -!:il)!i#

i:t:r:iirri-ir+.:,:r:riti'+ii:i:::

- l:.:: l :,r:i: :

7. Vieu, of interior of Parthenon, looking west, Villiam Gell, r8or, London, British

Museum (G8.RA)

r37

Dyr.Ri VtrLtalis

rl8

': : .:: . lt jllj.l i:,

;j

t

8. View of Fauvel's model of the Parthenon, London, Brirish Museum (G&RA)

Elgin's embassy came to a close at the end of rSoz and he intended to leave con-stantinople onJanuary r" r8o3, but there seems to have been some delay and itwas not until the zy'h that his ship, rhe Diana,lay off the Piraeus. Lusieri had justmanaged to remove two more statues from the pediment of the Parthenon (|anu-ary r5'L -r6'1'and z3'd), presumably figures G and K from the East pediment,+".After the cessation of some heavy weather, Lord and Lady Elgin were able todisembark and took the opportunity to visit one of Lusieri's new excavarions, a

tumulus on the road to the Piraeus, which was later to yield interesting finds (see

below - "Aspasia's Tomb") '+'. In addition, Elgin addressed some nores to Lusieriencouraging him to work quickly and embark as many sculptures aboard HMsBraaleel as possible. The Elgins left on February z"d for Malta to serve their timein quarantine. Not long after, HMS Braake/ set sail too with her heavy load of

Lusieri accounts - r5'1'January : "rope for oxen and other ropes to lower the statue" ; r6,1,

January : "6 more men to help lower the statue" ; z3,d January, : "6 men to help with statueon pediment". The paymenr for these pieces was probably included with that for the groupsE/F and L/M - see above.

Lusieri reported in his letter of z8'l'October i8oz that "since I have found a tumulus largerthan that which is said to be of Antiope, and since it has never been touched, I will excavateit as soon as I can". Hunt made arrangements for the excavation of this tumulus and wroteto Lord Elgin on z8'h November rSoz that the calmuck was to begin work there the nextday : Sr'tIlu, 47 ; A.H. S:r,l^ITH, Journal of Hellenic Studies 46 (t926), 257,

..oF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

pedimental sculptures '4'. From Malta Elgin eventually passed to Rome, thence

ro Genoa and finally to Marseiiles where, late in May, he was arrested as a pris-

oner of war by the French, war having just been declared. He was forced to

remain in France until r 8o6.

Artpn ELGIN, DRUMMoND - SPRING r8o3

Neither Elgin's departure nor his later arrest, however, initially seem to have

slowed Lusieri's work, despite the coincidence of FauVel's return to Athens in

January r8o3 and his immediate artemprs ro stop Lusieri's work'+;. Lusieri next

turned to the Erechtheion '44 and in the second week of February the second

Caryatid from the west on the south side was secured 'ai. On 2oth February there

was a payment of zoo piastres to the Disdar "for column, base, capital, architrave

of Erechtheum" - Lusieri had removed the northern column from the east Por-

tico of the Erechtheion. When the Caryatid was loaded onto the Medusa in late

April r8o3 Lusieri commented that the removal of the Caryatid had caused "a

smail re.rolution in both the town and the castle" 'a6. It is clear from this, and

other sources, that the Caryatid porch of the Erechtheion was held in Particularaffection by both the Greeks and the Turks, as Lusieri had noted in a letter to

Lord Elgrn as early as January tSoz'47. The reasons for this affection, as usual

with antiquities, do not seem to have been engendered by any scientific sense of

i1, SMITH, z54and:.93,no. r6,suggestedthatthe Braakelcontainedallthemainfiguresfrom

the East pediment and the Hermes and Ilissos from the lWest. He presumably rnade this

assumption from Hunt's letter to Mrs. Hamilton Nisbet from Pau in r 8o5 where the writer

moved from a description of all the pedimental figures to the problems of transporting

some. The shipping list of the pedimental figures on the Braakel (Department of Greek and

Roman Antiquities) reveals the inclusion only of East D, E/F, G, K, and L/M. The figures

taken in lare January (G and K) musr have been very hastily packed and transported, as Lord

Elgin had urged.

'al Fauvel wrote a letter in September r 8o3 to Brune, French Ambassador to the Porte, request-

ing a "moubachir" to be senr ro stop Lusieri - see PH.-E. LEGRAND, Reoue Arch1ologiqwe

.^ /.o^-\ .aaJe \Lo>/11 )oo,,aa There had been earlier consideration of removing the whole of the porch (Lusieri letter o{

rr'h January rSoz) and there was "murmuring" when I{unt asked for it: "The Turks and

Greeks are extremely attached to it", but "not dif{icult to take the best one of the Caryat-

1dS

,ar Lusieri accounrs :February 7'h for "rope to tie tow around marbles from the Erechtheum" ;

February rz,h for a "man who helped get down the caryatid" and for officials (Bo piastres).

There was an additional paymenr of roo piastres for Father urban of the Capuchins.

'a6 Letter o{ z7'h April r8o3.,r' 5ee tn. r44.

139

DYFRI lX/ILLIAMS

r4a

the scuiptures' importance or even a sense of "nationai heritage", as st. clairnotes, but rather by a mixrure of superstition that their loss would bring bad luckand a belief that they were magicai or conrained gold 'as. The variety of paymentsmade by Lusieri on this occasion, including one to Father Urban of theCapuchins, reflects this widespread superstition.twork continued at the same time on the Parthenon and two further southmetopes must have been removed at some point, perhaps in March, for they arerecorded as being loaded onto rhe Medusa togerhcr with the Caryatid in lateApril '+r (Lusieri's r o'h and r r,h - perhaps South 3 and z; South 3 had architravefragments over rhe adjacent triglyphs and the one to the west was lefr in positionby Lusieri 'ro, whiie South z was unencumbered).Elgin's replacement at constantinople was william Drunimond, later Sirwilliam. He arrived in Athens on April t7'h and Lusieri used his presence to goodeffect on t1-re new voivode, so that he was soon able to make a further concertedeffort on the frieze slabs still in situ onthe north side of the building'r,. Lusierihad becn keen to try ro remove the Ve st Frteze,for in his lerrer of 27,1, April r go3

he notes that "the mosr imporrant thing is to ask for the entire frieze from thewest side, and to do it as quickly as possible , because otherwise it wili be removedfor another nation", but the idea does nor seem to ha.,e met with supporr. This is,however, the first occurrence of a new nationalistic competitiveness rhat Fauvel'sreturn had engendered. on Muy 7'h we hear from Lusieri's accounrs of a house"in the Portico of the Parrhenon" being demolished "to enable work [ro be] car-ried out safely". This may well have been a ruined srrucrure within the colonnadeat the west end 'i'. Eventualln onJuly roth, there was a payment of 55o piastres tothe Disdar "for taking 6 pieces of frieze from corner between norrh and wesr", inother words from the west end of the north sequence (North xLII-xLrxiI). These

v

'+s This attitude can be seen not just from the Caryatid (SMITH, 347 ; ST. Cyarx LEM;, zo9),but also from a number- of other reports in various circumsrances : Sigeum, Sir Richard\Worsley (i786) and Hunt (r8or) - see SMiTH, r8z-r83;Eleusis, R. Chandler $76) andE.D. Clarke (r8or) - see Sr. Cr,q.rR LEM:, tot-ro6; and phrygia - see J.M. HEMELRTIKAND D. BERNDT, Bulletin antike bescha"ting. Annwal Pdpers on Classical Archaeology 74(t999), r-zo. Somc stories told of the removal of sculptures from the Acropoiis actuallyexpressed gratitude that Elgin had "saved" them from Turkish control over their "souls"and bemoaned the continued bondage of tl-rose left behind: J.c. HoBHousz, Journe\tbrougb Albania and other prooinces of Twrkey in Euro?e and Asia, to Constantinople du-ring the lears t8o9 and.r 8zo, London, r8r3, vol. I, 348.

,19 SMITH, 2'6.

"o Seepicture by H.W. \Williams, 18t7 : Parthenctz,r85, fig. ;5.'r'LusieriletterofzT'hAprilgivesthedateofDr-ummond'sarrivalandnotesthepresenceofa

new Voivode.

"' Qf. Fauvel's view, c. t79o: Parthenctn, tB4,fig. 33.

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERT] LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

+i:4r ji.n+: r -'.-

, li , .._ -. :FrS+! -.

"&F-ilr+,'Fhnq€+ieff#-.-9":-XE+@i+-S+S+te'.,+*ttt!l;.1.t-s+,t1t*.. .r.i:r. . .lii :",-i 'l r: _r'a4 ird'r'__!,..-r_--'':' *1J..-_a.r' n*:r'ii1....-

g. view of west end of Parthenop, Robert smirke, r 8o3, London, British Museum (G6aRA)

frieze slabs were probably removed in the second half of June, soon after Hamil-

ton arrived back from Kvthera "1.

AN EARTHQUAKE, HAMILToN AND RoBERT SIr,ltRrr, - SUMMER ISoJ

Ar some point in the first half of r8o3, and not in r8oy as recorded by Dodwe11,

there was a severe earthquake that caused not only three huge tymPanon blocks

to topple out of the centre of the west pediment, snapping off some of the cornice

below as they fell, but also the raking cornice above the pair of figures (\7est B

and c) left in the pediment to slip over, damaging, if not completely dislodging

,ir They were seen in Elgin's magazine by Robert Smirke on Juiy 4'h r 8o3 flournal). Hamilton

had been supervising work on lifting the sculptures out of the wreck of the Mentor of{ the

coast of Kythera - see SMITH, 259, and Robert Smirke's Journal.

r41

DYFRI \X/ILLIAN,{S

the head of Kekrops (fig S) ',a. It is reporred that this head had been finallyknocked off by human agency and smashed by May zo,h r 8o3 ,t,. The head of thewoman next to Kekrops had already gone by ca 179a and had been shown as a

ruined fragment to Fauvel ',6. Lusieri ma;r [rr.. chosen not to attempr ro removethis pair of figures either as a resuir of the then currenr view thar they were Ro-man and represented Hadrian and Sabina, a mistaken view first promulgated bySpon and Vheler, and still believed by Fauvel and Hunr, or because of the danger-ous way that the cornice leaned on top of them ',/.By the middle of July Lusieri seems to have turned his attention back to the southside of the temple. Robert Smirke, the architect, who was in Athens from theevening of June zgth until August r't r8o3, rogerher s,ith William.Walker, wit-nessed the removal of some of the tbranos blocks above more frieze slabs around

July zr": "The men employed were laboring [sic] long ineffecrually with ironcrows to move the srones of these firm built walls. Each srone, as it fel1, shook theground with its ponderous weight, with a deep hollow noise, it seemed like a

conr'-uisive groan of the injured spirit of the Temple.,rs" The removal of someten consecutive fragmentary slabs of the south frieze (presumably South v-xIIIwith trt) is also recorded in Lusieri's letter of September z6,h r8o3,. The southfrieze was clearly not complerely overlaid with crowning members, as not onlyAtkins's and Gell's sketches make c1ear, but also Ge1l's drawing of Fauvel's model(fig. 8). There were three clear gaps in the row. It is likely from Smirke's commenrthat Lusieri did dislodge some of the thranos, but it should be noted that he didnot do this when he removed South III, for it was left on the building, rogerhcr

ttl DODvELL Tour 7, 3z9.The date of r8o5 is accepted without question by B.C. pApAZACHoS

et al.,A CataLogue of Eartbqwakes in Greece and surrounding areafor the period 55o BC-r999 $va,1lable on the Internet). Fau'ei's watercolour of c. r79o (Parthenon-Kongress, pl.6r, r), Gell's sketches of rhe west end of Fauvei's model, and Atkins's and Gell's sketches ofr8or all show the wesr rympanon complete (eg. fig. r); Robert Smirke's drawings of Julyr8o3 show that the damage has already occurred (eg. Coot< Elgin Marbles,, fig.9, recentlyacquired by the British Museurn) - see {ig. 9.

'ir See Fauvel's lerter of that date (L. BESCHI, in: Partbenon-Kongress,3zz with n. 4r) and theevidence of Lord Aberdeen to the Select Committee (Select Com,48). It was this head thatDodwell thought he had acquired (see BEscHr, in: Partbenon-Kongress, 3zz).

'16 See L. BESCHi, in'. Parthenon-Kongress,3zz with pls. 6r, r and 6o, 3.

"7 G. \trHELER, AJourney into Greece, London, t68z,36z. See RotHr,NeERG, zo8 ; Sr. Cr_arnLEM:, to3-ro4; L. BESCHI, in: Parthenon-Kongress,3zz with pl. 6o, 3. Hunt in his letter toMrs. Hamilton Nisbet from Pau in r8o5 wrongly suggesrs rhat they may have also beentaken.

"s Robert Sxttxt<r.Journal (April-September r8o3) ; quoted by Sr. Clarn, LEMj, r1q.

1/)-a'

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,,: LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENoN SCULPTURES

with its immediate neighbours ',e. The precise degree of damage done to the

tbranos, both here and to the sequence over North XLII-XLUI, by Lusieri and

his men was, of course, put beyond discovery as a result of the destructionwreaked by the besieged Turks during the \(ar of lndependence in r 8zz, for theypu11ed down much of the remaining walls, especiallv on the south side, to get at

the lead for shot, causing half as much damage again as the explosion of r687 '6o.

On July z4'h, the day Hamilton sailed for Constantinople, there was a paymentfor "new ropes for lowering metopes", indicating Lusieri's next move. Vork,however, was delayed so that Lusieri could finish his drawing of this corner of the

temple (fig. ; 'n') and probably did not begin until eaily August, since none is

mentioned in Smirke's Journal. On August r3'1', however, thcre was a payment"to zz men for lowering a metope" which presumably marked the end of the

operation, for the next day there was a payment to the Disdar of r 5oo piastres for"3 metopes from corner between east and south" (Lusieri's rzth, rSth and r4tl'

metopes - South 3oa2). These were the last metopes that Lusieri's men removed

from the building and they necessitated the removal of some five cornice blocks,one of which has now been replaced on the temple (fig. ro)'6'. The scale of the

For the tbranos blocks over South I-IV, see the photograph of r869 by \W.J. Stillman:A.DELIVoRRIAS et al., Athens t8j9-r9oo : A Phorographic Record, Athens, r98y, no. 299. Inrecent years some r4 thranos biocks have been collected on the ground : TocANIols, in:

Re storation za, r z3 (he notes that this rcpresents r 8 m of the original wail length of zt .96m).

Lusieri presumably left South I-II and IV because of their poor conditior-r.

M. KORRES, in'. Parthenon, r 56 and Restoration za,, 56.The French Colonel Olivier Voutierreported seeing this damage being done darly: M6mctires du colonel Voutier sur la gwerre

actuelle des grecs, Paris, r823, z4o.In t827, when the Greeks were in turn besieged on the

Acropolis, General Yannis Makriyannis wrote that he was prepared to take his last stand inthe Parthenon and blow up hin-rself, his men and the building : see his Apomnimoneomata,in Athenian Arcbioes II, L VLACHoYANNTs (ed.), Athens, t9o7, z8q. There was also a good

deal of damage to the remaining columns from canon fire.

National Gallery of Scotland D (NG) 7ro : ST. CLAII. LEMI, pl. 4; Designs of Desire : Ar-chitectural and Ornamental Prints and Drazi:ings t5oo-r8So, T. Currono (ed.), Edin-burgh, r999,no r43. lnhisletterof Septemberz6'h r8o3 (repeatinganextractfromhisletterof August z6'h, since he was unsure o{ the bearer) Lusicri notes that "beforc having the three

metopes [South 3o-32] taken down, I wished to finish mv drawing of them which I started

a lone time ago".

See Acropolis Restoration : Tbe CCAM Interoentions, R. EcoNorlAxrs (ed.), London,t994, tzB above and r3l ; note tl-rat the piece of raking geison ar the south corner of the east

pediment, which was displaced by Elgin, has also been restored to its position. The accu-

racy of Hobhouse's view of r 8o9/r 8 io (reproduced in Sr. Cl,ttn LEMJ, pl. ;) is rendered

dubious bv the watercolour by William Page Q794-t872) done in r8r8/r8r9, reproducedhere by kind permission of the owner (fig. ro).

r4)

DyERr \(rrr-rarvrs

ro. View of southwest corner of rhe Parthenon, \William Page, r8r8/r8r9,Longriddry, The Earl of \Wemyss and March

payment to the Disdar was probably the result of the degree of disturbance andthe need to remove so much architecture.This work on the south-east corner also enabled Lusieri to turn to the south endof the East pediment, for on August r6tl' rhere was a paymenr to the Disdar "forthe horses' heads" (roo piastres). These musr be the horses heads B/C from thesouth corner of the East pediment and were presumably taken with figure A,Helios. IJnfortunately, two letters written by Lusieri to Elgin in the summer (rz,hand z6'h of August) failed to arrive and the nexr report from him dates to Septem-ber z6th'6;. This records the acquisition, noted above, of the three metopes fromthe south-east corner and the sequence of south frieze slabs, as well as that of thehorses'heads.

'6r SMtrH,2rZ.

r44

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LoRD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

LUSIERI,S PROBLEMS GRO\(/ AND THE REMOVALS CEASE - SPRING I804

By the autumn of r 8o3, however, things were becoming more difficult for Lusieri

with Elgin under arrest and unable to send any letters except to his famiiy and

with the new Ambassador, William Drummond, failing to send any supportive

communications. There u,ere also in Athens "two very rich English gentlemen

(...) o.r the point of offering as much as ,o,ooo piastres, to obtain the trieze",

presumably the west frieze (thrs was nearly eight times what Lusieri paid to the

Disdar to secure the whole of Elgin's collection) '6+. St. Clair suggests that one of

these was the young Lord Aberdeen, then aged zo, who was in Athens with his

Greek teacher in the spring (April 17-z) and summer (August 3o-September z8)

of i8o3 '6t. There is no mention of such an ambition in Lord Aberdeen's Diary

nor does it seem at all likely from the tone of Lusieri's mention of Aberdeen in his

letter nor from the fact that it was Aberdeen who was to carry the letter to

E,lgin '66. In fact, Robert Smirke records the arrival of a motley group of travellers

at the very end of July, just as he was preparing to leave, that included an English-

man, an American and some Bavarians. It may have been the first two of this

group that caused Lusieri anxiety'67. Despite such problems, however, Lusieri

persevered and by early December he had secured "another piece of the main

pediment" (payment to the Disdar o{ z5o piastres on December 4tl'). Given the

reference to the "main" pediment, this must have been the figure of llissos (.West

pediment, fig. A) '68.

Lusieri's difficulties continued in the early months of I8o4. Nevertheless, his

determination hardly wavere d and a ietter of January 6'h reports one new piece of

frieze secured - "another fragment of the principal{rteze which follows on from

the corner which I have already taken" '6s. This must be Vest II, with which he

presumably took a wpll-preserv ed thranos block 'zo. In the same letter, however,

'6+ Lusieri letter, z6'h September r8o3 ;Suttn, zy7.,5, ST. CLAIR LE14), r37 ;l:y p. t7z suggestion has become fact.

'66 Sutru, 257.

'67 Nicbolas Biddle in Greece: The Journals and Letters of r8o5, R.A. MCNEAL (ed), Pennsyl-

vania, t993, z notes that Biddle was the second American to visit Athens, but does not name

the first.168 Lord Elgintn Memorandum (p. r;) mistakenly refers to this piece as having been excavated

under the west front. That the sculpture now removed cannot be the East pediment

Herakles/Theseus is also made clear by the reference to a "figura di uomo sedente" being

boarded on rhe Braakel in early r8o3. The west end is frequently referred to as the front.

One supposes that this was because it was in better condition, because it had formed the

front of the church and because one comes to it first on entering the Acropolis.,69 SMITH, 2,7.

'io BMCatSculptwreSig.Ct'.watercolourbyJ.Skene,rS38-45:Parthenon, r88,fig39.

r4t

DYFRI \fi/ILLIANIS

Lusieri also complains of the lack of support from Drummond and Pisani and theincreasingly hostile attitude of Fauvel. Here one should mention the comment inthe i8z5 edition of Stuart and Revett's Antiqwities of Atbens suggesting thar

Fauvel's complaints to the Porte actually produced a "counter-firman in suffi-cient time to prevent the removal of this very material decoration to the western

front of the ruin" '7'. Something like this may well have been the case, or at least a

letter from Pisani, for it seems 1ike1y that Lusieri did stop working on the

Acropolis very soon after (the suspension perhaps occurred at the end ofJanuary,although it is only first recorded in a ietter of May r 8'l' to Elgin) 'z', transferringhis efforts to the excavation of the large tumulus near the Piraeus that he cal1ed

"Aspasia's Tomb" (as his February and March accounts show), a tumulus thathad been partiaily investigated at the end of r 8oz '71.

"Aspesra's Torvte" - r 8o4

This tumulus u,as "on the road which leads from the Port Piraeus to rhe

Salaminian Ferry and Eleusis", in vineyards 'z+. At this date, it had a circumfer-ence of about z5o feet and a height of 8o feet and was made of fine, tightly packedsand. On March 6th, some ro feet down, was found an egg-cup shaped marblebasin that contained a large bronze dinos (fig. r r). \flithin the dinos, a gold myrtlespray rested on top of the burnt bones. Lusieri purchased {or z.zo piastres "an

antique vase in which to place the ashes", which were thus returned to theground. Lusieri also made a superb watercolour of the dinos, which is now in the

National Museum of Scotland '/t. A large alabaster alabastron was found nearby

'z' The Antiquities of Athens II, \W. KtNNaRo (ed.), London, t8z5,4o;noted by ST. CLAIR,

IJCP 8 (rSSil, +Sg-+6o, who rightlv questions the presumed (by Smith) motivation {orLusieri's non-acquisition of the west frieze. In a letter of z4'h April r8o7 Lusieri blamed

Logotheti for this failure. One might also note the comment in Lusieri's letter of July 4'h

r 8o5 that "M. Pisani wrote again fmy italics] to Mr. Logotheti, that thenceforward I was notto take any more statues, or columns etc.". \7as such an earlier letter what the editors ofStuart and Revett called a "counter-firman" ?

'7' SMITH, z5B. Lord Elgin did not receive this news until the begining of January r8oy (letterto \ii/.R. Hamilton, January 3'd r 8o5).

' j 5ee xbove, nore 14I.

'71 SMITH,z58;A.H.Sx,nTtt,JcturnalofHellenicStwdies46Q9z6),253-257;D.'il/rura,irlsand

J. OcnrN, Greek. Gold : Jeuellery of the ClassicaL \X/orld, London, r994, t8.'7r National Gallery of Scotland D NG 7r I (attributed to Lusicri by the present Lord Eigin in

t988) : The Draughtsman's Art: Master Drauings from the National Gallery of Scotland,

M. CLARK (ed.), Edinburgh, ,999, 5z-53, n" zo.

r46

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

r r. Bronze dinos and marble vessel from "Aspasia's Tomb", G.B. Lusieri, r8o4-r8o7,Edinburgh,National Gallery of Scotland

- Lusieri's letter of r8'h May adds that the alabastron was complete, had lugs and

wavy decoration and was "r pred 7 pouces" high and "r pied" in circumfer-encet76" In r8o9, however, when Lusieri returned to Athens after his exi1e, thisalabastron was discovered to have been stolen from his house '77. The gold myrtie

There is a sketch of this alabastron, together with the bronze vase inside the marble con-taineq included with Lusieri's letter of r 8'h May r 8o4.

See Lusieri's long report of the conter-rrs of the two houses in an apper-rdix to l-ris letter o{December ro'h r8r3.

r47

DYFRI \flILLIAMS

spray was also stolen at some point, but was sold back to Lusieri by the thief 'zs.

It is not clear when this theft occurred, but it may well have been at the time of the

ransacking of Lusieri's store. What is now clear from the finds, however, is that

the tomb was that of a male and not of a female.

By the autumn of r 8o4 Lusieri was getting into serious financial straits, especially

following the refusal by Mr. Tooke, Lord Elgin's banker in Constantinople, to

honour any more bi11s drawn on Elgin's account'/e. Excavations, however, con-

tinued and in his letter of August 3otl'they are reported as being located "beyond

the Museum hill and near the Ilissos". Six marble urns with vases and alabaster

items were found '8". Lusieri noted that the potiery which he had been findingrequired mending and cleaning, and that "they have designs which will come out

after cleaning". Smith presumed that these are the classical vases (white-groundIekythoi) that were exhibited at Burlington Fine Arts exhibition of t9o3's'. FIe

also suggested that the pottery confiscated by Ali Pasha in r8o7 and sent to

Napoleon came from this series of finds (see below).

Doovrell AND GELL RETURN - r8o;

InJuiy r 8oy Lusieri noted the return of Dodwell and Gell to Athens 's'. They had

been traveiling in northern Greece (May to June) and spent the summer in Ath-ens, before setting out again at the beginning of September on a tour round Atticaand neighbouring islands and towns (including Aegina, Salamis and Eleusis) to be

fo11owed, after a brief respite, by one of the Peloponnese (November r8oy toMarch r 8o6).

Lusieri was quick to complain of their behaviour :

"They conduct themselves in such a way as to disgust everybody, and Ithink that those who come after will not find the same civility eitherhere or at Argos. These gentiemen have wanted to undertake diggings

without firmans, without asking permission of the Voivode, or of the

'78 SMITH, z8 3 ; Lusieri letter 4'h September r 8 r r .

I79 SMITH, 260.I80 The marble urns are presumably from among BM Cat Sculpture 58r, 583-685, 688-69:.

'8' SMITH, z5t-262. Some were sold by Lord Elgin in r957 - see C.C. VERMEULE and D. voNBOTHMER, American Journal of Archaeology 6i OSSil, r4r-r42. Two more pieces were

offered by Mrinzen und Medaillen AG, Auktion XXII (Mav r96r) nos. 174-175. For draw-ings of same of these vases (made in 1811) see 1. JENriNs, Adam Buck's Greele Vases, Lon-don, t989, r6-17.

'8'Lusieriaccounts,July4'handOctober4'h;cf.letterofOctober4'h.Doowl.LLTourI,z.85,

r48

..C)F PUBI,ICK I]TII,ITY AND PUBI-ICK PROPF-RTY,, LoRD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENoN SCI]LPTURES

landowner, and without making any return. The Voivode has been so

much disgusted that he has stopped them from going on, letting allknow that he would not allow anyone whatever to dig except me.'8r'

That this boast was the case seems to be confirmed by comments made later byLord Byron's't.Ge11, of whom Lusieri said that he "has not by any means English manners" '8i

seems to have retaliated by making more trouble for Lusieri through the use ofrumours spread among the French to the effect that Ambassador Drummond was

not in favour of the continuation of Lusieri's operations 's6. It should be noted

here that Dodwell and Gell were staying in the Capuchin monastery attached to

the Classical Lysikrates Monument, where Fauvel also lived 's7. Fauvel's jealousy

of Lusieri's success, for l-re had managed everything that Fauvel had wished to do,

and frustration at his impotence ever since his return at the beginning of r8o3

were no doubt very infectious and one can quite well imagine Lusieri's arrogance

driving these "outsiders" beyond complaint to spoiling tactics. The outcome was

inevitable : October saw the Voivode revoke all excavation permits. It was notuntil the summer of the following year, 18o6, under the auspices of a new

Voivode, that Lusieri again secured a permit to "excavate openly" 'ss, but now he

was in direct competition with Fauvel, who also began excavating.

The results of Gel1's and Dodwell's seemingly unsanctioned excavation of tombsin the Piraeus area were describcd by Dodwell '8e. There would seem to have been

other travellers excavating in Arhens at this time, one of whom is referred to byDodwell, a certain Dr. Macmichaei who excavared tombs in the region of the

Dipylon Gate 'eo. Gell and Dod*e11 also collected objects on their various tours,such as the white-ground lekythos acquired by Gell on Aegina'e'. Most ofDodwell's collection ended up in Munich, including a number of vases, but hrs

prize possession, a head which he was told had come from the west pediment (the

'8: Lusieri letterJuly 4'h r8oy ; c/. Sl,rrru, z6t-262.

's+ Tbe Complete PoeticaL'X/orks of Lord Byron rr,J.J. MCGANN (ed.), t973-1982, 49, quoted

by Sr Clarn LEM3, r9t.'!r Lusieri Ietter, October 4'l'.

'86 Str4ITH, z6z; Lusieri letter, October 8'l'.

'87 DODvELL, Tour I, 289.

'ss Lusieri accounrs, r3'h Jul1. accounts: r,1o piastres to Voivode for telescope "to excavate

openll"'.,se DOD\vELL, Tour I, 4zo, 428, $r, $3-467.'e" DODY/ELL,TourI,4r5 and 457,h.t;A. Mtcuaplrs, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain,

London, r882, r6r. Couid this perhaps be the "McKenzie, a most amiabie man" referred to

by Lusieri as being in Athens in his letter of Julv 4'h r8o5 ?

'e' DoDvELL, TowrI, 465, fn.4, and 572, 1n.7.

r49

DYFRI \il/ILLIAtuIS

r to

"Hadrian" - see above), would seem to be the head of the cenraur from South

metope 5, which is now in \Trirzburg, as Frank Brommer suggested 'e'. Dodwellhimself records the threats that he used in order to continue his work on rhe

Acropolis without afirman in r8o5 lei.

The summer and autumn of r 8oy thus seem to have been a particularly turbuientperiod. Lusieri, still without any letters from Lord Elgin, reports that the newVoivode was accused by his enemies of accepting huge bribes, despite the fact thathe had had only taken up office long after Lusieri had finished removing sculp-

tures from the building. It is surely no coincidence that this was also the momentwhen Lord Elgin reports that he was re-arrested while on parole at Pau, an aclionprompted, he suggested in his evidence to the Select Committee, by reports fromAthens about Lusieri's removal of the Parthenon frieze 'ea. These reports were

perhaps the result of a continuing concern on the part of Fauvel to prevent theremoval of the rest of the Vest frieze (one slab had been taken in February r 8o4 -see above). Furthermore, there was an additional complication for Elgin in Paris

itself, for in August Feodor the Calmuck had arrived there "powrsuiz,re uneaffaire contre Lord Elgin" , which concerned " affaires d'int6rAts-pdcuniaires" 'et.In general, however, the moving force behind both these arracks, the one on theVoivode, the other on Lord E1gin, can only really have been Fauvel, perhaps withthe support of Dodwell and Gel1 in Athens and the Calmuck in Paris. It should be

noted, finally, that Lord Elgin believed, probably rightly, that he could have se-

cured his own release at any time, if he had agreed to handover his collection tothe French government 'e6.

Lono ErclN's Rr,r-r,asr, AND LusrERr's FLTGHT - r 8o6- r 8o7

Lord Elgin was eventually released and allowed to return to England in Juner 8o6, but it was not untii October ro'h r 8o6 that Lusieri records in a ietter that he

19e

Doorvnll, Towr I, 325 ; Wr.irzburg H. 2446, ex collection Martin von \Wagner. Cf . f n. r 5 5.

Doowrll, Towr I, 293-29 5.

Select Com,43; Sr Cr-arn LEMr, rz9 with fn. 29 on p. 362. Elgin had been re-arresred once

before during his paroie, in November r 8o4.

See M.E. Yrtlr, Leben und Werk des badiscben Hofmalers Feodor lt.uano-- itsch Kalmiick(t763-tBjz), Karlsruhe, :,973,3t. The first quote is from Fouch6's daily reports to Napo-leon : E. D'HAUTRIVE, La Police Secrite du Premier Empire II, Paris, r 8o8 (ed. t9t ) 4t-45 ; the second is from Talleyrand's report to the Minister for Police :Archives de France, F

7 6462, dossier 99 r r . The Calmuck had been waiting in London for two vears to finish oifhis drawings of the sculptures (still packed in cases).

Memorandum,93-94(appendix);SelectCom,63(lettertoCharlesLong,5'hMayr8rr);Sr.Ctxrx LEM:, rz9.

192

19)

194

..OT PUELTCK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : Lono ELGIN AND THE PARTHENoN SCULPTURES

had learnt of Elgin's release. This 1ed him to try to explain his circumsrances and

his necessary concentration on excavations in the neighbourhood of Athensa1one. He notes "among the vases found in the diggings, rhere are some whichought to be cleaned, and others which ought to be resrored". This recalls thecomment of the previous yeat when he was clearly digging in a Classical and LateClassical cemetery south of the Ilissus beyond the Hili of the Muses, but this timehe may well have been working in the area of the Dipylon Gate, as Dr.Macmichael had done in r 8o5 (perhaps for the very reason rhat Lusieri was not ar

the time interested in that area). Certainly it would seem likely that many of the

Geometric vases that form part of the Elgin collection were found in the area ofthe ancient Kerameikos, especially the splendid neck-amphora from the DipylonPainter's workshop recently placed on loan in the British Museum 'e7. Fauvel rooexcavated here - one notes for example his discovery 3o feet down near theDipylon Gate "...d'un genre phdnicien ornde de mdandres, aoec des chevawx dans

les compartiments et des cochons sows les Anses'et". The excavation of this hugecemetery had been delayed by the depth c,f the overlay of soil and by the earlyconviction that the Kerameikos was to the south of the city. Greek archaeologistswere not to begin systematic excavations in this area until r87o.Lord Elgin's release might have 1ed Lusieri to hope for an improvement in hissituation, but Elgin's personal affairs, in particular his rragically bitter divorce and

his financial problems, and wider international politics were all against him. InFebruary of i 8o7, as a result of Turkey's breach of the treaty with Russia in favourof France, England deciared war on Turkey. On February z6'r all of Lusieri'sfinds were sequestered on the orders of Aii Pasha and sealed where they weresrored, samples of the vases (izo in ai1) being sent ro the Pasha in Ioannina fortrans-shipment to Napoleon (they never reached Napoieon, being left behind at

Spalatro) 'ee. Lusieri was required to stay in Athens, but he fled instead, reachingKythera on April 9. This move by A1i Pasha was probably set in morion byPouqueville, prompted again by his friend Fauvel'oo.

'vz See D. \(/ILLTAMS, GreekVases, London, rg99, z"a ed.,34, fig. 2l ;J.N.CorosrRral,t, in:Ithak.i: Festschrift far Jarg Schiifer zam 7t. Geburtstag am 25. April zoo:., S. BOuu aNoK.V voN EICKSTEDT (edd.),Tribingen, 2oor, rzr-124.

'qs Pu.-E. LEGRAND, Reawe Archiologiqwe 3o (rBSl), SSI - this is Louvre A 5 r4, purchased inr8r7 from Fauvel.

'ee See SMITH, 267, n. ry5 and 277. Fauvel's papers indicate that he thought the vases of littleimportance, being mostly late black-figure lekythoi with chariots on them.

'oo SN{ITH, 267;Pn.-E. LEGRAND, Ret,ue Arch1ologique 3o (r897),389.

IiI

DYFRI \TILLIAMS

Lusrr,Rr's RETURN AND THE FINAL FmuaN - r 8o9- i 8 r r

Robert Adair, later Sir Robert, was sent out from England to negotiate with Tur-

key in May r 8o8. An uneasy peace was evenrually signed on January 5'h r 8o9 and

by the end of August Lusieri was back in Athens'o'. He immediately had his

house re-opened, only to find that it had been ransacked with a number of losses

(eg. a bronze helmet and the large alabaster alabastron from "Aspasia's tomb" -see above). He then set about trying to ship the remaining sculptures out of Ath-ens. In his letter of 7'h Sept r8o9 Lusieri noted that the Voivode and the Greek

Primates were willing for all the scuiptures to'go (repeated in a letter of i9'h Sept

r 8o9). On the January I" I 8 I o the marbles began to be loaded on to a polacca, buton the 7th the Voivode ordered them to be unloaded, as a result of a message fromthe Kaimmakam that embarkation required a firman from the Porte, a message

most probabiy stimulated by Fauvel 'o'. Lusieri immediately sent a message withthe Voivode 's Tartar to Adair at the Porte. The Ambassador was able to write toLord \(el1es1ey on Februa ry zz"d r 8 r o that he had " at length succeeded in obtain-ing an order from the Caimakam to the Voivode of Athens, for the embarkationwithout further detention of the antiquities collected by Lord Elgin"'ol. OnMarch zo'h the firman arrived in Athens, brought back bv the Voivode's Tartar,

and on the z7'h forty-eight cases left the Piraeus on board the polacca. Five of the

largest cases (containing, for example, the capital and drum from the Parthenon)

had to be left behind, but these were shipped out on April zz of the next year,

r 8 r r, on the Hydra, which also carried Lord Byron, together with several sculp-

tures that he had collected for himself and for Lord Broughton. Byron, who had

written the Cwrse of Minerva in Athens only a month earlier, had been staying

with Fauvel in the Capuchin monastery and it would seem likely that Fauvel,

immensely jealous of Lusieri's success and vindictive sti11 towards Lord E1gin, fed

Byron his spite.

It is important to note that this frnal firman secured by Robert Adair was from

Sl,utu, 277.

SlttlH,279.Cf alsoPu.-E.LEcn,cND,ReoueArcbdologiqwe 3o(r897),39o, fn. r:letter{rom Fauvel notes this disembarkation and the political swing in favour of France at the

Ottoman court.

'or For r.his t'irman see R. Ao,tiR, The Negotiations for the Peace of tbe Dardanelles in r8o8-9,

London,r845,vol.7,p.z7zandIIp.6;originallettersFOTS/64and78168.Elgin'sletterof

3 r " July r 8 r r to Spencer Perceval notes that Adair was at first told that "the Porte denied

that the persons who had sold those marbles to me had any right to dispose of them". CfDiary and Correspondence of Cbarles Abbott, Lord Colchester, London, r 8 6I, entry for z9'h

April r8rr. Forthe circumstances see ST. CLatR LEl4r, rtt-r56; these are ignored by C.

HITCHENS, The Elgin Marbles, London, ry87, 52. Adair had written to Elgin on z5'r'Sep-

tember r8o9 that hewas encountering difficulties in securing afirman (Srurru,278).

rt2

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

the same authority as the first, which enabled Elgin's work to begin in r8or, al-

though not the same Kaimmakam. It thus represents, in effect, the official

legitimisation, after the event, by the responsible authority, which had been in

power for nearly Jto )rears, of ali the activities of Elgin's agents in Athens.

LUSIERI: ARTIST AND AGENT

Lord Elgin's coliection would never har.e been formed without Lusieri. He was

born in Rome in 17 t t,bltby t78z had moved to Naples where he worked for the

Queen of Naples and for various private Patrons, especially the English

Milordi'oa. Lord Bruce, who had sent a view by Lusieri to his father, Lord

Ailesbury, tn 179zl went on to purchase in t793 other views, rncluding one of the

temples ar Paestum) when he wrote in a letter to his father that he sti1l admired

"Don Tita's drawings more than a.'y" zct ' In the same year Sir Villiam Forbes

visited his studio and wrote as follows : "His landscapes in transparent watercol-

ours are the most exact & elegant transcripts of nature I ever saw" 'o6. Events in

Italn howeve r, 1ed Lusieri to flee to Sicily in t799 and it was thanks to Srr William

Hamilton that Lord Elgin was able to approach "the first painter in Italy", as

Elgin referred to him in a letrer to his mother'"7. \7.R. Hamilton tracked Lusieri

down at Messina and engaged him at salary of fzoo per annum '"6'

In FIunt's letter from Athens of zz"d May r 8or to Lord Elgin he refers to Lusieri

working on two general views, one from the Pnyx, the other from Mt Anchesmos

(Lykabettos), and on three studies of particular monuments, the temples of

Minerva (Parthenon), Theseus (Hephaisteron in the Agora) and Pandrosos

(Erechtheion)'o'. Th... are, however, no references to these in any of Lusieri's

later letters and when Lady Elgin commented on Lusieri's artistic work during

her visit to Athens in r8oz she said, "I own I am disappointed - not one single

view finished - nothing but innumerable sketches" rIo. It seems, therefore, that

once the firmanhad been obtained, Lusieri's artistic work at Athens had to take

second place to his archaeology. This required not only considerable organisa-

tional and managerial talents but also a tenacity in the face of growing jealousies

and petty quarrels in the sma1l community of foreigners in Athens - one has only

'"+ On Lusieri see C.I.M. \il/ILLIAxts, Burlington Magazine rz4 Q98z), 492-496

'o\ Vases € Vctlcanoes. t7z.

"h Vases O Volcanoes. tt4.'oz Letter of 5'h October r799.

'"e SMITH. r68-r7o.,C9 SMITH, I88.

"" Nisbet Le tters, r78.

r rl

DYFRI \VILLIAMs

to think of the dispute over water supplies with Dr. Mertroud in the summer o{r 802 "'. "when the collecting is going on so furiously", Lusieri wrore in octoberr 8oz, "how can I find the time ro draw, or have rhe head for it ?" .,.. Furrhermore,between r 8o r and r 8o3 he also had to supervise the work of rheformatori and theother artists - the former seem to have worked we1l, but there were real problemswith Feodor and the architects "1. \(hen Fauvel rerurned to Athens at the begin-ning of r8o3 the problems deepened and were, it seems, further exacerbated byDodwell and Gell during their second visit in r8o5-r8o6.Lusieri was probably something of a perfectionist, perhaps even obsessively so, as

indeed one might almost surmise from his astonishing micro-rea1 style. Huntwrote in r 8or of Lusieri with great enthusiasm. "of Lusieri's indefatigable zealrcannot speak in terms of sufficient praise. His conduct oughr to make some of hisColleagues b1ush" "4. In r8o3, Robert Smirke recorded Hamilton,s view ofLusieri as follows : "Hamilton had a very high opinion, especially of his profes-sional abilities" and even that "he had never mer anyone whom he felt attached toas a friend except Lusieri the Italian artisr" zIt. captain Lacy, however, noted histouchiness and liability ro become jealous of any interferences and more of thismay be seen from rhe comments of Dodwell and others "6. L.ord Elgin's finaljudgement on Lusieri in r 8 r 6 was that he was "a gentleman of the strictest honourand regularity, who had the direction of a1l my operarions, and in whom I haveplaced the utmost trust" ',7.It was clearly necessary for Lusieri to ensure that the loca1 officrals continued topermit his operations, both archaeological and artistic. This required the giving ofpresents in the Ottoman manner : they ranged from telescopes and watches toshoes and tobacco "s. The money that Lusieri paid to the Disdar in connectionwith the sculptures has been the subject of recent comment by villiam St.clair"e. The amounts paid for specific sculptures between the middle of r8or

"' Lusieri letter 3o,h August r8oz;SMITH, z3o.

"' Letter of October z8'h r8oz ;SIrfltu, 236.

"l Eg. letter z6'h October l8or ; SMITH, zoz.

"'+ Letter of 3 r" Juiy r 8ol ; Sl,tITH, zoz.

", Robert Smtrke,Journa/ and "Nores referred to in my Journal", n. 24.

"6 Lacey's ietrer to Elgin, r 5,1. February r 8oz ; SMITH, zo4.

"7 Letter to Charles Long, postscript of z9,h February 18t6 : Select Com, 65, Appendix y.

"s For a list of expensive presents sent from E,lgin in Constantinople to Lusieri see SMITH, zo8.Shoes (worth r.z5 piastres) were regularly given to rhe servants and workers.

"e \X/. ST. Ctl:x, IJCP 8 (tggil,4at-4a3 and 458-459; see also his article,..The parthenon

Marbles: Questions of Authenticity", in: The Destiny of the partbenon MarbLes, R.Hunnano HO\i/LAND (ed.), washington DC, zooo, 8-9. lJnfortunateir,, all of the dates oipavments noted by St. Clair are incorrect, regularly as to ).ear (they are corrected here inpassing). For the pavmer-rt of 5,ooo piastres ro the Voivode on " zo April r 8 o3 " see below, thereal date being zo'h May t8ro. Other errors and misrepresentations in William St. Clairt

rt4

..oF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

when the removals began and early t8o4 when they ceased were carefully noted

by Lusieri in his accounts (mentioned above and in the notes) and they total ;,9 5 5

piastres. A separate account note, however, aiso gives a figure of I 5 5o piastres for

seven metopes between r8or and the end of January r8o3. Since the figure of

5,g55 piastres already includes ca goo piastres for four meropes, one must add

somerhing like a further 65o piastres for the remaining three. This provides a total

of approximarcIy 6,5oo piastres paid by Lusieri to the Disdar for the sculptures

that he removed over some two and a half years (that is between ca f.5oo and !6oo,

using the extremes of the exchange rates encountered by Elgin during these

years) .,o. In addition, however, the Disdar received two fufther payments of 3oo

piastres, both in r 8o4, which were not specifically associated with sculptures and

may represent seasonal gifts "'.This total was clearly a considerable sum for the Disdar to receive. St. Clair points

our that it was many times his annual salary, but the economy was in deep reces-

sion with the currency collapsing and the salaries of both Greeks and Turks re-

maining very low .,.. Opportunities for securing additional funds *ere seized

upon by those at all levels of society. For example, Hunt notes that the dragoman

of the Morea couid count on an extra Io)ooo piastres annually from what were

described as "perquisits"..l. Given the interest of the Milordi and the Dilettanti,

the opportunities for such "perquisits" were clearly extraordinary f.,. the Disdar

on the Acropolis and he and his family re.realed their rapaciousness from the very

beginning of Lusieri's time in Athens. Indeed, Lord Byron called the Disdar "the

greatest patron of larceny" - Lord Byron, of course, left his young companion,

Nicolo Giraud, the brother of Lusieri's wife, the sum of 97,ooo (nearly Ioo,ooo

piastres) in his will .,+. In rhe end, as Lord Elgin himself wrote quite openly :'?i,

we must understand that the scale of all such gifts and Payments had to be "pro-

two articles are addressed in J. BOanOltAN, "The Elgin Marbles : Matters of Fact and

Opinion", IJCP 9 Qooo),42-z6z and 1. JEurrNs, "The Elgin Marbles: Questions of Accu-

racy and Reliability", IJCP rc (zoot),55-69.

"o For these exchange rates see Select Com,67.

"' Lusieri accounts : ro'l'January and zr" December l8o4.,. \(/. ST. Clarn, IJCP 9 Qooo) 4o8, quoting J.C. HOBHOUSE,Jowrne\ throwgh Albania,Lon-

don, rg r 3, 3 5 l, gives this as I 3o piastres. Lord Byron gives the figure as r 5o piastres: wor&s

of Lord Byron (op. cit.fn. to9) r 88. For the general state of the economy see H. AUCELO-

Tsouc,tRarts,The E',te of the Greek Reoioal, London, t99o,t46-2o6.

"j Hunt letter to Elgin, 3I"July I8or.,,+ ForByron'scommentseeWorAsofLordByron(op.cit.tn.Io9)r88;{orhiswillseeSt.Clair

LEM1 t6o.

"s Select Com, 64; partly quoted b1' Smith, 3 I o.

rtt

DvrRt \flrrrral,rs

portioned to the rank of the parties, the sacrifice to be made, and the eagernessshown".In contrast to a Disdar, a voivode clearly only received a payment of money invery exceptional circumstances, such as on October 3'd r8o3 when the currenrvoivode was given r,ooo piasrres "because the clock had not come or the goldbox". The only other examples are connected with the final shipments of sculp-tures from Athens, when in r 8 r o one Voivode received 5,ooo piastres for "favoursand assistance to Mv Lord's operarions" and the following voivode r,.2.4o piastresafter the departure of the Hydra.,6. These lasr two payments of -rrney wereprobably necessitated only by Lusieri's lack of the more normal gifts at momentswhen the voivode's goodwill needed to be secured quickly. It remains only to addthat the Mub)shrr seems to have received no payments wharsoever, although oneshould not perhaps imagine that he received no gifts. To conclude this digressionon money ar-id gifts, it is importanr to nore thar in r8r6 Lord Elgin himself esti-mated for the Select Committee that the total sum spenr on presenrs of all kindsto a1l the loca1 officials in Athens over the ten years berween r8or and r8rr, in-cluding the money paid to the Disdar (and on three exceptional occasions toVoivodes), was zr,9o2 piastres, thar is between about h,7oo and !z,ooo, depend-ing on the exchange rate "7.As we have seen above Lusieri seems to have x,orked with immense determina-tion on his archaeological remit, whether collecting sculptures and inscriprionsfrom the Acropolis, removing sculptures from the Parthenon, or excavating inand around Athens. There can be 1itt1e doubt that he wc,rked with as much care as

was possible given the time and rhe conditions rhat pertained. The damage that heand his team caused ro the architecrure of the Parthenon is confined ro two ar-eas "8. The first concerns the cutting back of the sma1l projecting edges of thetriglyphs where they overlapped in front of the carved meropes. Here Lusieri'smen clearly had difficulty in removing rhe metopes, since the tendency of twotouching marble surfaces to almost "fuse" was something that was also encoun-

21ta Lusieri accounts : May zo'l' r 8 ro (y,ooo piastres). This pavment is noted by Sr. cr-arn, {cpI (rSSil,4

5 9, but he gets the date wrong and therefore the conrext and meaning. By r g r o thepiastre had depreciated sharpiy (c. zo piastres to lr), while wages had risen considerably.Lusieri accounts:6'l'Jul1, r8rr (r,z4opiastres), "to load rnarbles on Hydra".The totai sum is given in Appendix 5 to Select Cam (p.66) ; note tl.rat 1. JENrtrrts, IJCp ro(zoor),69, fn. 42, mistakes pounds for piastres. For comparison, Lady Elgin's domestic billsfor r8oo came to 88,472 and those for r8or, after many economies, were !4,g47(CurcruaNo, y3).

See M. KoRRES & ch. BouRAS, Meleti apokatastdseos tou parthenonos,Athens, r9g3,373,with illustration on p. j9o. The issue of sawing the backs off the frieze blocks is dealt withabove, as is the cutting of the capital.

t55

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,,: LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

tered by the Acropolis Restoration team at the end of the twentieth century. The

second relares to the overlaying architectural members (the geisonblocks over the

metopes and the tbranos blocks over the frieze). Here remains some uncertaintv

as to what was actually preserved rn Elgin's day, but an attemPt has been made to

chart it above. Lusieri's concern over the dangers in working above South Metope

z9 in September r8oz, noted above"e, suggests that such blocks were not srmply

thrown to the ground but were norma1l1' treated with care' There were numerous

subsequent occasions for damage to them once they were on the ground.

Lusieri's forced flight from Athens in r 8o7 and the shedding of the archaeological

work seems to have given his drawing some thing of a new lease of life and we hear

of him at work on various projects on Sicily and Malta, including a big view of

Etna on Sicily and a view of "I1 Boschetto" on Malta'ro. On his way back to

Athens inJuly t 8o9 he was delayed at Ioannina, where at Captain Leake's encour-

agement he began a view of the city 'j'' By the end of August he was in Athens,

but had to spend most of his time at first re-establishing himself and trying to

repair relations with Logotheti. Thereafter, he endeavoured to have the remainder

of Elgin's collection shipped to England.

By r8o9 Lusieri already seems to have been suffering from rheumatism and the

work on transporting the collection was not completely settled until the end of

t 8 r t. Following this, Lusieri entertained hopes of excavating at Olympia but this

was nor to be, although he clearly did manage to keep collecting objects for

Elgin '];:. FIe seems to have tried to work, therefore, more with his drawings, as he

reported inJune i8r7, while asking for rol1s of paper'il. Lusieri's health, how-

ever, was clearly deteriorating fast and, indeed, Captain Dundas rePorted him to

be "on his last legs" '1".

At about this time H.\W. ("Grecian") \flilliams wrote a detailed description of

Lusieri's style and l.ork, but ended by noting that he would probably leave much

unfinished 'lt. E.D. Clarke commented that Lusieri's drawing was "always slow

in deliberation; but it was the tardine ss of the most scrupulous accuracy" ''r. BY

,.q Lusieri's letter to Lord Elgin of zS,h October r8oz refers to "some barbarisms" and this is

most likely to refer to the September incident, although it may also subsume a more general

reaction.

'ro Letters of 3'd February and 7'h July r 8o8.

'r' Letrer to Elgin of zr"July r8o9. Surtu, 277.11'1 SMITH, zB4-285.

'rr Letter June r 8'h r 8 r7 ; SMITH, 286.

';+ Dundas letter August 3o'h r8r7; SMITH,286.

'rt H.\fi/. \ftt-uarvts, Traoek in ltaly, Greece and the lonian Island.s, London, r8zo, II,3ir-33,1 ; quoted by Sl,rtlH, t69-r7o.

t57

DYFRI \X/ILLIAMS

ri8

January r819 Elgin had determined that he wanted to bring the engagement ofLusieri to an end. Hamilton acred as intermediary and was rather severe in hisjudgement : "I enclose a packet from Lusieri, which you should read on a veryfine day. It shows him an arranrJew (...) His excuses for his idleness are abomina-ble, and he evidently has finished nothing - nor indeed done anyrhing to the pur-pose, in any way whatever, for the last four or five years." .tt

In a letter of i6th August r8r9, in a rone approaching finai despair, Lusieri wroreto \7.R. Hamilton: "'J7hat is to be done with so manv drawings which are stillonly outlines ? There are only two drawings completed on rhe spot; one of theParthenon, the other of the monument of Philopappos." The latter is, of course,in Broomhall and is referred to in a letter of 3otl'August rSoy as follows "I havejust completed a three foor coloured sketch after narure of the very picturesquemonument of Philopappos". F{e musr have taken it to Malta when he fled Athensin r8o7'i8. The former is presumably that now in the National Gallery of Scot-land, the gift of Lady Ruthven, as seems to be indicated by the reference to ir inthe letter from "Grecian" lvilliams of r8 17 -"r saw only one coloured drawingby Lusieri, a,d that consists of a few columns of the Temple of Minerva " (fig.

5) te.

Lusieri's letters, however, also mention a very large panorama of Athens, some 8'

4" in length, begun at the end of August r8o5, being worked on in Septemberr8ro and still unfinished inJuly r8r7:+o. Lusieri's grearest panorama of this typewas of Constantinople. In a ietter to Walpole of 3o'l'September r8ro he describedit as "large be1.en.1 measure and which cost me so much trouble, was sent back tome in a deplorable state. It is only now useful for making a copy. \7har a shame I"In a Ietter of z7 ltiy r8r7 he gives thc length as r7 feet, while aiso asking for more

PaPer to copy it 24I.

In r 8 r9 Lady Mary Ruthven, a relative of the first Lady E1gin, Mary Nisbet, wasin Athens for several months together with both her husband and her brorher .+,.

'j5 Clarke Trat,eLsII, ra (fn.). A similar comrrent was made by Farington as early as r8or :

Farington Diary Y, r 695 (r't November r 8or ). Ferington added that "he looks for the rninu-tiae of everyrhing".

'r7 Lerrer to Elgin, 9'h November r 819 ; SIvtilu, 287.

';8 Philoppapos Monument : Sr'liTu, 263 ; CuEcr<lAND, pl. I (colour). Lusieri aiso took thebronze dinos from "Aspasia's Tomb".

.J9 SMITH, I70.

'1o Letters of 3o'L August r8o;, z"d September r8ro (description) and zTJ.Jy fi17 (dimension).'+' His finished view of the Bav of Naplcs is rz feet lor-rg: vases & volcanoes no. 4, 1 tz- rr),

commissioned bv Sir \X/illiam Hamilton (now in the J. Paul Getty Museum).'a' Lusieri's lctter of 7'h May r 8 r9. SilltTu, 286.

.,OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PROPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

i.ii;i1tii,t.,:i,,1,

rz. View of Temple of Zeus Panhellenios, Ladv Ruthver.r, r 8 r9, Edinburgh, Natior.ral

Galler,v of Scotland

Lusieri wrote of her that "thrs Lady draws like an artist". The National Gallery of

Scotiand has two watercoiours of Athenian temples, one of the so-called

Theseum, the other of the temple of OiympianZeus, by Lady Ruthven '+1. Both

clearly show the influence of Lusieri and suggest that he most probably gave her

lessons. Of the two pictures, that of the temple of Olympian Zeus seems the most

closely "Lusierian" (fig. rz). Indeed, a comparison between this view and that of

the west cnd of the Parthenon in the Bcnaki Museum and now usually attribured

to Lusieri (and wrongly dated r 8oz), indicates the latter is reallv the work of Lady

Ruthven, as Frank Brommer had earlier surmised'++. Lusieri dred suddenly in

National Gallery of Scotland D (NG) 7o9 and 7tz. Lady Ruthven also bequeathed two

marble funerary reliefs ro the National Gallery of Scotland - n"' 686 and 687 ; for 686, the

reiie{ oi Aristomache, see G. BALDvIN Br.owN,Journ.ll of Hellenic Studies 6 Q885), 16-18.

Benaki Museumint. 23979: F. BROI''I\{ER, Die Skulptwren der Parthenon-Giebel, Munich,

t 96 3, pl. 7 z, z ; P arth enon t 7 7 iig. z r ; D. FotoRoULoS and A. Dr,r-lvonRt AS, Gr e e c e at tb e

Benaki Museu,nz, Athens, 1997,49j, n'868. This watercolour was acquired by Antonis

:ii:. lii

tt9

DYFRI \X/ILLIANIS

Athens on March r't r 8z r and a message o.as sent to Lady Ruthven with rhe news.Those of his drawings thar he had taken to Malta on his flight from Athens inr 8o7 eventually passed to Lord Elgin (they included the finished watercolour ofthe Philopappos monument and a watercolour of an ow1) but those left in Athensor begun after r8o9 were tragically to sink on their way home on board theCambrian '4t. As we have seen, the only other finished watercolours ro survivefrom Lusieri's Greek period were those that he gave to Lady Ruthven, seeminglyafter Lord Elgin had essentially terminated their contract. Lusieri's epitaph mightperhaps have been his own comment in r8o5: "I am convinced that it is not bythe great number of drawings that an artist dakes his reputation, because quan-tity (...) only indicates imperfection. 'a6"

Lono ElcrN's INTENTToNS FoR THE scut-pruREs

One last question remains to be considered, namely Lord Elgin's inrentions forthe sculptures from the Parthenon. The purpose of his artistic embassy was, as wehave seen, to make drawings and assemble a collection of casts that would be"beneficial to the progress of the Fine Arts in Great Britain". When Hamiltondrew up precise instructions for the team of artists, a request for "everyone ro payattention to the possibility of acquiring such pieces of ancient sculpture as merittransport" appeared only as number rB o{ zz, an instruction in a very differenttone from that made by Choiseul-Gouffier to Fauvel '+2. In his lerter to Lusieri ofDecember r8'h, r8or, by which time, as we have seen, Lusieri had secured fourmetopes from the buildrng, Lord Elgin was already taiking in terms of "a verygreat nationai acquisition". This was clearly nor just nationalistic pride speaking,but was said because he felt that the acquisition was for the nation and not forhimself and certainly not for "domestication" in his house at Broomhall ,+s. Thepracticalities of the situation, as well as Elgin's rank and position with its inherent

Benaki himself, but it is not known when or from whom. One might wonder if LadyRuthven gave it to Lusieri in return for the two watercolours of his own (see above) and thatit was separated {rom his own works at the time of his death or soon a{ter, since it was norhis work.

'lt SMITH, z9a-292. The watercolour of an owl is at Broomhall: D.B. BRorvN,Turner andByron,London, r992, n" zz. A group of his Italian views 'were sold at Sotheby's 3o,h Juner 986.

'a6 Letter o{ October ro'h r8o6;Srltrtu,255.'a7 Hamilton papers ar Broomhall ; Srvt.itu, t76.Eor Choiseul-Gouffier see above.'+8 See ROTHENBERG, t57-r6r.

r6o

.,OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

concept o{ noblesse oblige, must have made him realise that such sculptures

would have to pass to the nation. At the end of r 8oz, when still in Constantino-pie, he wrote to the British Government suggesting that it might consider a tem-

porary gallery at the British Museum to hold his collection, but the idea was too

novel, for the Museum had neither Department of Antiqurties nor Curator 'ae. Inr 8o3, when interned by the French, Lord Elgin sent instructions to his family at

home to make over to the Government) unconditionally, his entire collection'ro."But hrs famrly (with whom alone he was then permitted to correspond) frombeing whol1y unacquainted with the object, delayed complying n'ith this direc-

tion till the year r 8o6, when he reached England. ""'Upon Elgin's return to England, the collection, not yet unpacked, met with the

deeply undermining claim by Richard Pa1,ns Knrght that "Phidias did not workin marble : that the sculptures which decorated the pediments of the Parthenonwere execuled, at soonest in the time of Hadrian...','As a result, Elgin seems to

have drawn back and determined to put the sculptures on public exhibition inLondon on his own account. ByJune r8o7 the sculptures were arranged in a spe-

cially constructed building in the grounds of a housc on the corner of Park Lane

and Piccadilly, the arrangement in this "Musaeum" being sketched by Charles

Cockerell:rl. Access to this display was free and ihe marbles were drawn withgreat enrhusiasm by Benjamin Haydon and many others.

In i8o8, ever more concerned over those of his sculptures still in Athens, LordElgin wrote to Lord Mulgrave saying "I undertook the extensive p1an, on whichI had proceeded so 1ong, and at such expense, for the purpose of rendering mycollection of publick utility and pubhck property... " ' t1. By r 8 r o serious, but long

drawn out purchase negotiations had begun and in r 8 r 6 Lord Elgin wrote to N.Vansittart M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer, as follows :

'+g Farington Diary Y, t945 Q t December r 8oz). Taylor Combe was only appointed to the stalT

of the British Museum, on the recommendation of Charles Townler,', in r8o3 and the De-

partmen! of Antiquities was not created until r8o7, when Taylor Combe became its firstKeeper.

"o ROTHENBERG, r9r-rgl, ; Select Com,6z, Appendix 4. C/. also Hunt's letter o{ r8o5 {romPau to Mrs. Nisbet (Nisler Lefters,3z8) which talks of "a public exhibition at London".

"' Select Com, 62, Appendix 4.

"' Select Com, 62, Appendix 4. This pronouncement was made at a dinner at Lord Stafford's :

CHECKLAND, 82. See also Tbe Arrogant Connoisseur : Richard Payne Knight t75 r-tBz4,M. CLARKE and N. PpNNv (edd.), Manchester, r982, r 5-r6.

2,r SMITH, 297-3o6 with 299, fig. ro (at Broomhall).

',1 SN{ITH, 269-27o. Cf also his letter to Hamilror.r when declining membership of the Dilet-tanti in r 83 r: SMITH, 168.

r6t

DYFRI Y/ILLIAMS

"I should have been most highly gratified in presenting mv collcction(the fruits of many years anxiety and trouble) graruirously ro my coun-try, could I have done so, with justice to my family. Situated, however,as I am, I can only transfer it to the Public for such considerarion as rhe

House of Commons may judge proper ro fix.'z;;"

In the end, after a debate in the House of Commons, a special ParliamentarySelect Committee was established. Evidence and reports (both oral and written)were laid before it, including a detailed explanation of all Lord Elgin's expenses)

in connection with which he added that he had never sought to include in his sale

negotiations "the intrinsic vaiue" of the sculptures, only to recover something ofthe costs that he incurred 't6. Following the complerion of the report, the issue

was debated again in Parliament onJune 7'\ t8r6 and by a majority of 8z to 3o the

recommendations of the Seiect Committee were approved. Thus, Lord Elgin re-ceived !3 y,ooo from the British Museum, a sum which clearly did not even coverhis costs, while the collection was acquired for the narion and vested in the Trus-tees of thc British Museum in perpetuity.

AcrNowr-T,DGEMENTS

I am very grateful ro Lord and Lady Elgin for allowing me to consult papers at

Broomhall and for having their Dodwell watercolour photographed. Dr. AngelosDelivorrias generously gave me a photograph of the important watercolour by\X/illiam Gell in the Benaki Museum, while Dr. Fani-Maria Tsigakou providedfurther information on a number of other drawings in the collection. Mr. Aidan\(/eston-Lewis kindly showed me the works of Lusieri and Ruthven in theNational Gallery of Scotland and provided photographs. Mr. and Mrs. JulianBrooke generously allowed me access to Lady Elgin's original letters to herparents before they were purchased for the British Museum.

Docuur,Nrs

Lord Aberdeen, Diary (r8o3): Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities,British Museum, London.

Select Com,6r, Appendix z.

Elgin estimated his costs at f73,6oo (including interest) : letter to Vansittart 8'h Jur-re r 8 r ;(Slrlru, 3 z 5). His estimate as to the monetary vaiue of the sculptures is preser-ved in .r mlnu-script at Broomhail noted in ROTHENBERG (qz6-427, fn. r4z) and entitled "Obser-vations

on the Evidence of Richard Payne Knight Esqr. before the Committee of the House ofCommons appointed to enquire into the Value of the Elgin Marbles". It was between!r3o,ooo and !r 5o,ooo.

)tt7t6

r62

..OF PUBLICK UTILITY AND PUBLICK PRoPERTY,, : LORD ELGIN AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

Lord Elgin's letters (copies) : Broomhall, Fife.

\7il[am Geli, Diary ( r 8o r ) : Bristol University Library, Bristol.Philip Hunt's letters to Lord Elgin : Broomhall, Fife.

G.B. Lusieri's accounts: Broomhall, Fife.

G.B. Lusieri's letters ro Lord Elgin: Broomhall, Fife.

Mary Nisbet, Lady Elgin's letters: Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities,British Museum, London).

Robert Smirke's, "Journal of my Tour through Greece (April-September r 8o3,)"

and "Notes referred to in my Journal of my Tour through Greece" : Library of

the Royal Institute of British Architects, London.

AeeRevraroNs

BM Cat. Scwlptwre: A.H. SMITH, CataLogue of Sculptwre in tbe Department ofGreek and Roman Antiquities of the Britisb Musewm, vol. III, London, r9o4.

BRol,rur,R Metopen: F. BRol,llrarR, Die Metopen des Parthenon,Malnz, 1967.

CgaNorrn Traoels: R. CrraNoLER, TraqLels in Greece or An Account of a Tour

made at the Expense of the Society of Dilettanti,London, 1776.

CuEcrraNo: S. CuecKLAND, Tbe ELgins r766-t917. A Tale of aristocrats,

proconsuls and their zoives, Aberdeerl r988.

CI-aRrE Traoels: E.D. ClanKE, Traoels in Variows Cowntries of Ewrope, Asia

and Africa, London, rSrr-r8r8.Coot< Elgin Marbles': B.F. CooK, The Elgin

DoovrnlL Tour: E. Doowr,r-1, A Classical

Greece, London, I8 r9.

Donwr,r-r- Views in Greece: E. Doovrr,LL,Vieras in Greece, London, r8zr.Farington Diary : lhe Diary of Joseph Farington, K. GaRrrci< and A.

MacrNtvRr, (edd.), New Haven &,London, t979.

Hope : F-M. TsrcaKou, Tbomas Hope (1769-r8j r) : Pictwres from r9't' Centwry

Greece, Athens, r98;.IJCP : International Journal of Cwbural Property, Oxford.Memorandwm: Memorandum on tbe Swbject of the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in

Greece, London, r8ro, r8rr, r8r;.Nisbet Letters; The Letters of Mary l'{isbet of Dirleton Cowntess of Elgin,l.P.

NtseEtt HAMILToN GRaNr (ed.), London t926.

Par,I-aRou Athina'. M. Par,r-anou et al., A1t1va Gfto ro t/LoE tou agyalourcoopou €@E rqv i\guotT rou eLLqvrcod rcgd.touE, Athens, i98 5.

Parthenon: The Parthenon and its impact in modern times, P. TounNIrIous(ed.), Athens, r994.

Partbenon-Kongress: Partbenon-Kongress Basel, E. BEncpn (ed.), Mainz, r984.

r63

Marbles,2"d ed, London, r997.

and Topograplcical Towr through

DYFRI \X/ILLIAMS

Restoration: M. KORRES et al., Study for the Restoration of the Parthenon, vol.za, Athens, r989.

Roftlr,Neanc:J. ROTHENBERG, "Decensus Ad Terram" : The Acquisition and

Reception of the Elgin Marbles, New York &'London, t977.

Select Com : Report from the SeLect Committee of tlte House of Commons on tbe

Earl of Elgin's Collection of Sculptwred Marbles, London, r8I6 [paginationused is that of the official Selecr' Committee's publication, not that of JohnMurray's reprintl.

Surru: A.H. Surrn, "Lord Elgrn and hrs Collection",Journal of Hellenic Stud-

ies (r9t6), t63-372.

ST. CLAIR LEM: W. ST. CLAIR, Lord Elgin €' The Marbles,Oxford, t967.

ST. CLAIR LEM': W. ST. CLAIR, Lord Elgin €z Tbe Marbles, Oxford, t983, z"d

edition.ST. CLAIR LEMt: \X/. ST. CLAIR, Lord Elgin €, The Marbles, Oxford, 1998,3'd

revised edition.Str.vENs Erecbthewm: G.P. SrEvpNS er a/., The Erecbtheum, Cambridge Mass.,

r927.

Vases €, Volcanoes: I. JrNrtNs 8. K. SLOAN, Vases G Volcanoes : Sir .\X/illiam

Hamilton and His Collection,London, t996.

r6+