Ruins of Balbec, Baalbek, Lebanon, after Metz, Engraved by Walker, circa 1782

About this sheet

This engraving presents the ruins of Baalbek as a picturesque scene. At left rise the remains of a temple portico with tall Corinthian columns and a heavy entablature, overgrown with trees and shrubs, beside a single standing column and a broken pediment. Fallen blocks, carved fragments, a fluted column drum and a richly molded cornice lie scattered across the foreground, where two men in turbans sit resting among the stones. At right a classical statue stands before a ruined wall with niches, and in the distance a walled town with slender minarets lies beneath a sky of ruled lines and rolling clouds.

The plate is lettered "Metz del." at lower left and "Walker sculp." at lower right, with the title RUINS OF BALBEC. in open capitals below. Balbec is the spelling used by eighteenth century travelers for the city known today as Baalbek.

Baalbek, the Roman Heliopolis in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, is one of the most impressive classical sites in the Near East, with the colossal Temple of Jupiter, of which six columns still stand, and the remarkably complete Temple of Bacchus. Robert Wood's Ruins of Balbec of 1757 made the site famous in Britain, and for the rest of the century its columns and fallen entablatures were a favorite subject for artists and engravers.

Conrad Martin Metz (1749 to 1827) was a German born painter and engraver working in London, best known for his drawings of classical ruins and imaginary landscapes. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds an impression of this plate, lettered in the same way, cataloged as made in 1782 and engraved by William Walker. The composition is closer to a romantic capriccio than an exact survey of the ruins, and its sense of grandeur and decay is exactly what the eighteenth century taste for the antique admired.

Condition: Good condition for its age. Toning, scattered small spots in the margins, a small pencil numeral in the lower left margin and a slightly uneven right edge. Please review the images for further condition details.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.