The Temple of Edfu: The Door of the Pylon
Medium
Watercolor (wash and point of brush work) and gouache and graphite
Dimensions
{"sheet":{"height":0.355,"width":0.433}}
Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
2015.73
Tags
About this artwork
This notable recent acquisition is the work of John Frederick Lewis, who moved to Cairo in 1841 and stayed for almost a decade. He made this drawing on an expedition up the Nile that he took with his wife in 1849–50, around the same time that the first photographers arrived in Egypt. At that time,the temple complex at Edfu was buried to a depth of almost 40 feet. Lewis’s watercolor carefully renders the ruins and records the hieroglyphic inscription,but transcends archaeological description to e...