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THE TOWER OF THE WINDS [Horologion of Andronicus] "Les monuments de la Grèce avec l'harmonie de leur ensemble, la pureté de leurs lignes et la grâce exquise de leurs ornaments et de leurs sculptures portent l'empreinte du génie particulier des Hellènes, fécondé par l'influence d'une mythologie riante et favorisé par le climat le plus heureux" Girault de Prangey Essai sur l'Architecture des Arabes et des Mores en Espagne, en Sicile et en Barbarie, Paris A. Hauser 1841, Introduction page VI. "...the only surviving horologium or clock tower. It was built soon after the middle of the first century, not later than the year 37, at the cost of Andronicus of Cyrrhus (a town near the Euphrates). The building is octagonal (25 feet in diameter), and bears at the top of each side a relief of the personified Wind which blew from that direction. Sundials were attached to the sides, and a projecting turret held the tank that supplied a water-clock. There were also two porches, each with two Corinthian columns... The originality of this building is exceptional, and of a character out of keeping with Hellenistic architecture as we know it. That may be explicable on the ground that all prototypes, among which the pharos must be included, have been destroyed. In fact, the design is obviously Greek..." The Tower of the Winds is one of the tiniest and most perfect of surviving Greek monuments. Excavation of this 1st century BC clock tower began in 1837, five years before Girault de Prangey visited Athens. By 1842, most of the previously half-buried octagonal tower had been revealed and the artist was able to make a small group of daguerreotypes that are now the earliest surviving photographs of the building. It is quite likely that it had never been photographed before. Like the architect, the artist had no prototype photographs on which to base his efforts. With his interest in architecture and archaeology he would likely be familiar with the engravings in Stuart & Revett's highly influential Antiquities of Athens, first published in 1762, in which the Tower of the Winds was well documented. He would also be aware that this miniature masterpiece had influenced other important designs and even been copied almost directly since the publication of these engravings. Lawrence, A.W. Greek Architecture, pp. 310-314.

JOSEPH-PHILIBERT GIRAULT DE PRANGEY

57. Athènes Tour des Vents.

細節

JOSEPH-PHILIBERT GIRAULT DE PRANGEY
57. Athènes Tour des Vents.
Daguerreotype. n.d.[1842] Titled and numbered in ink on label on verso.
4¾ x 7 3/8in. (12 x 18.8cm.)

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拍品專文

The title of this very modern view places it firmly amongst the photographer's studies of the Tower of the Winds, but the picture concentrates more on the surrounding city. Athens had only recently become the capital of Greece after the country gained independence from the Turks in the early 1830s. When it was made the capital in 1833 it was still a town with a population of only around 4,000, in the area to the north of the Acropolis in a district known today as Plaka. Also in the 1830s the architects Stamatis Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert drew up a master plan for the expansion of the existing urban settlement to a size and style more appropriate for a capital city.

The Tower creeps in only at the extreme right of the scene, just enough to indicate its location. The rather gaunt Cyprus takes precedence, arresting the eye in a similar way to the minaret in lot 14. The low wall around the Tower looks newly built or restored as befits a monument that had only recently been "rediscovered" by the Greek Archaeological Society. There is a figure standing to the right of the sentry box and it is tempting to perceive the shape of a burdened mule in the shadows on the left of the picture.