Lot Essay
Europeans rediscovered Palmyra, the city in the seventeenth century and reports and illustrations brought back to Europe in the eighteenth century created a Palmyrean craze. On returning from his trip with James Dawkins in 1750, Robert Wood wrote his authoritative study Ruins of Palmyra for which Dawkins supplied the illustrations. These drawings helped inspire the then fashionable Palmyrean interiors at houses such as Osterley Park.