drawing
- Museum number
- 2012,5001.127
- Description
-
View of Metéora (?)
Graphite
- Production date
- 1813-1814
- Dimensions
-
Height: 145 millimetres
-
Width: 215 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Samuel Pepys Cockerell (ed.), 'Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817. The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.' (1903, Reprinted 1999), p. 247 - 249
'...In the afternoon we arrived at Meteora, the strange rocks of which we had seen from some distance up the river..Next morning, January 31st, I ascended to the principal monastery of Meteora. After a tiring walk of half an hour, winding among the crags of this strange place, we came to the foot of the rock on which it is perched, and found that the ladder commonly used, which is made in joints five or six feet long, had been drawn up. We called to the papades who were aloft to let down the rope and net. After some hallooing, down it came, a circular net with meshes round the circumference gathered on a hook. Michael and myself, with my drawing materials, got in and were drawn up by a windlass. To swing in mid-air trusting to a rope not so thick as my wrist and 124 feet long (I measured it) is anything but pleasant. I shall not forget my sensations as I looked out through the meshes of the net as we were spinning round in the ascent. There was a horrible void below - sheer precipices on each side, and then the slipping of the rope as it crossed on the windlass. Once up, we were pulled in at the entrance, the hook drawn out, and we were set at liberty. The company that received us were some wretched papades, as ignorant as possible. They could tell me next to nothing about their monastery, except that on the occasion of an invasion of the Turks, a bey of Trikhala, one Joseph Ducas, has retired hither and established it and seventeen others. The buildings of ten of them still exist, but only two or three are still inhabited. The church here is a very good one, and there is a chapel of Constantine. The view is magnificent. ...'
C. A. Hutton, 'A Collection of Sketches by C. R. Cockerell, R. A.', JHS 29 (1909), pp. 53-59.
David Watkin, 'The Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell', (London 1974).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1908
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 2012,5001.127