Watercolour, Ephesus (`Ruins of the Temple of Diana'), about 1828-1840, by William Page

Watercolour drawing

Purchased with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund, Shell International and the Friends of the V&A

According to Rodney Searight: - `Bt PHW [Prue Heathcote-Williams], Aug.1971, £21 [with SD.756].

This is almost certainly the `sketch' used by J.D. Harding for his watercolour engraved by E. Finden, published with the above title in 1834, in T.H. Horne, Landscape Illustrations Of The Bible, Vol.II, 1836. However, it does not represent the Temple of Artemis [Diana to the Romans.] After six years of patient searching, the site of the temple was only rediscovered in 1869 by an expedition sponsored by the British Museum, led by John Turtle Wood
SD.742-SD.756 appear to represent Page's later, more picturesque, style, about 1828-about 1840. The artist appears to have worked in two distinct styles: the first during the 1810s and early/mid 1820s, represented here by the costume studies and The Fountain of Babhoumayoun (SD.720-741); the second during the late 1820s and 1830s, represented here by the picturesque landscapes (SD.742-756). Another group of landscapes from the second period, some signed W. Page are in the BM, PD.

SD.742