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Sardis

Maude

1832

watercolor

From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum

Romanticism Early 19th Century

Dominant colour

Sardis is a 1832 watercolor by Maude, a Romanticism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Who painted this?: Maude
When & what style?: 1832 · Romanticism
Where can I see it?: Victoria and Albert Museum

About this work

This watercolour shows ancient ruins near Sardis, Turkey. It’s a quiet, factual sketch by an unknown artist named Maude. Two lonely columns stand in a dry landscape with no people. The ruins once belonged to the Temple of Artemis, a famous ancient site. This sketch was made in the 1830s when the area was mostly empty. It started as a real view, not an imaginary scene. Check out the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more like this.

The story of this work

Overview

This 1832 ink and wash sketch by an otherwise unidentified artist known as Mr Maude depicts the two remaining columns of the Temple of Artemis at Sardis, a site then marked by desolation in what is now Sart, Turkey. The drawing, commissioned for *Landscape Illustrations Of The Bible*, presents a straightforward record of the ruins without figures or dramatic elements. The engraver William Finden subsequently tasked Clarkson Stanfield with interpreting the sketch, leading to a more theatrical watercolour that introduced a storm and a fallen rider to evoke the apocalyptic prophecy of the Book…

Read the full account in the museum source.

About the artist

Artist

Maude

Maude painted delicate watercolours of ancient ruins in the early 1800s. Their small sheet *Sardis* shows crumbling marble columns half-buried in ivy, the light caught just right on stone. Look closely and you’ll see…

See the richer artist page