William Page Temple of Poseidon at Sounion from the northwest

Inscribed u.r.: Cape Colonna, graphite on paper watermarked S & C WISE/1814

43.5 x 59.9 cm

The early watermark on the paper of this drawing, made with the aid of a camera obscura, provides a terminus a quo, although it seems unlikely that Page drew this before his first Royal Academy exhibit of 1816, as he would probably still have been studying at the RA Schools in 1814. It is more likely that it is a sheet of paper which he took with him when he left on his travels.

Cape Sounion, a promontory at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula, surrounded by the sea on three sides, is one of the loveliest sites in Greece. The Doric temple, seen here from the north-northwest, is dated to circa 440 BC. Dodwell wrote that the fallen columns are scattered about below the temple, to which they form the richest foreground.