Cassas left Istanbul on 20 October 1786 and returned to Rome in February 1787. It is impossible to know the exact date of his visit to Athens but it is documented by the present composition and known through a larger version in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours (Louis-François Cassas, exhib. cat., 1994, no. 65, illustrated) and in a picture now in a private collection, England.
The three works show minor differences in their compositions, although all of them depict the same architectural details and display the same archeological accuracy.
Cassas had been travelling to Turkey with the French Ambassador, the Comte de Choiseul Gouffier, along with a team of scientists and archeologists, among whom was Fauvel. The project of a book, Le voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phênicie, de la Palestine et de la Basse Egypte illustrated by Cassas and written by the ambassador, was never completed due to the Revolution. Choiseul Gouffier emigrated to Russia and in 1791 Cassas returned to France.
In fact no illustrations of Athens were planned for the Voyage Pittoresque, a lacuna which seems to have been quite common among late 18th Century artists travelling to Greece. Cassas was the only Frenchman before 1821 to have left Athens with such finished views. The details of the mosque in the Parthenon and the little houses on the side of the Acropolis are rare testimonies of this city in this period.