Cassas was a skilled draughtsman, painter of picturesque landscapes and figure subjects, and an indomitable traveller. After studying in France and Italy, he went to Sicily and then joined an expedition to Dalmatia and Istria [modern Yugoslavia.] In 1784 he left France for Constantinople with the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, the French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Later that year he embarked on a journey to Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Cyprus and Egypt, returning January 1786; later that year visited Asia Minor and the Greek Islands. He returned to Rome in 1787 and then settled in Paris 1791-2 where he published several large volumes of engravings after sketches made on his travels.

The ruins in this watercolour are recognisable as those of ancient Myra in Lycia, now modern Demre on the south-west coast of Turkey. However, the lush vegetation, the numerous trees, the lake, the waterfalls are a fantasy. Romantic ruins were seldom romantic enough in reality to satisfy the intense longings for a past imagined golden age which many classically educated patrons, like the Ambassador, shared. In the 18th century there was a prevailing belief that Nature could safely be improved on, and so the artists obliged. Nearly as always in the work of Cassas, the groups of Turks and Greeks smoking, picnicking or making music act merely as additional decoration, or `staffage’ giving a sense of the scale of the picture. However, the Turks did (and still do) like to take their `keyf’ or placid enjoyment in the open air, so Cassas would have seen and sketched such gatherings in his travels.