The Lion gate of Mycenae, Peloponnesus

Stackelberg, Otto Magnus von, Baron. Baron de Stackelberg del . Lithog par Broulloff. The Plain of Argos and Mycenae. "Plaine d'Argos et de Mycène." Paris J.F. d'Ostervald 1829-1834
Lithograph of the Lion gate of Mycenae and the plain of Argos from Stackelberg's " La Grèce. Vues Pitttoresques et Topographiques." First and only edition: double page from an unfolded edition; modern colour; blank verso.
The view shows the famous entry to the acropolis of Mycenae, the Lion Gate ,and looks over the Plain of Argos to the castle of Larissa, Argos with Nafplion in the distance .
The gate is unexcavated; in the foreground are various figures including the artist making a sketch of the gate; on the approach to the gate another group of figures, stand before the "trésor souterraine" as indicated by Stackelberg. The view is important in showing the archeological features before excavation which was first carried out by the Greek archaeologist Kyriakos Pittakis in 1841. He found and restored the Lion Gate. In 1876, Heinrich Schliemann started a complete excavation at the site. Bright & clean; some minor spotting to blank margins; upper corners with old repairs.

"La Grèce. Vues Pittoresques et Topographiques."was published in livraisons from 1829. It appeared in an ordinary format and also with the plates on india paper, mounted. Bound copies of the complete work often contain both formats made up from different livraisons. Complete copies with all the plates are rare; the Blackmer copy had 114 of the 126 plates [including the subtitle vignettes].

Navari states;" This is Stackelberg's chef d'oeuvre, and it is regarded by many as the most beautiful book of Greek views."
In his biography of von Stackelberg, Gerhart Rodenwaldt called him the "discoverer of the [ancient] Greek landscape".

Count Otto Magnus ,Baron von Stackelberg(25 July 1786 – 27 March 1837) Born in Reval (Tallinn ) Estonia. Archeologist, writer & painter.

Stackelberg travelled to Italy in 1809 and there met and became friends with the archaeologist and art historian Carl Haller von Hallerstein, & the Danish archaeologists and philologists Peter Oluf Brondsted and Georg Koes,
whom persuaded Stackelberg to accompany them on their trip to Greece. They intended to produce an archaeological publication upon their return, for which Stackelberg would produce landscapes.
The trip to Greece was long and adventurous, setting out from Naples in July 1810 and not arriving in the Piraeus until September. At Athens, they were joined by the British architects and archaeologists John Foster and Charles Robert Cockerell. The group carried out excavations at several Greek sites – in 1811 at the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina, they removed the fallen fragmentary pediment sculptures and on von Hallerstein's recommendation shipped them abroad and sold them the following year to Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria; and in 1812 they exposed parts of the temple of Apollo at Bassae (the frieze they found on it is now in the British Museum) and Aeacus's temple of Zeus Panhellenios (Panhellenic Zeus),again at Aegina.

In autumn 1814, Stackelberg returned from Greece to his family in the Baltic States. He travelled to Italy again in 1816, researching antiquity and the Middle Ages as an art historian and becoming co-founder of the "Instituto Archeologico Germanico" in Rome. Together with Eduard Gerhard, August Kestner and Theodor Panofka, he also established in 1824 the "Hyperboreans" ("Römischen Hyperboraeer") there, a group of northern European scholars who studied classical ruins. Both were the precursors and embryonic stages of the later German Archaeological Institute. In 1826 Stackelberg's archaeological work was published as Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arcadien und die daselbst ausgegrabenen Bildwerke (The Temple of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia, and the Wall-paintings excavated there), for which he also provided the drawings. Also during this time in Rome in the middle of his life, Stackelberg undertook further trips to Greece, to Turkey and within Italy. In Etruria in 1827 he discovered the Etruscan temple and hypogaeum at Corneto (now Tarquinia)
Navari/ Blackmer: 1593; Sotheby's/Blackmer 1031 360 by 650mm (14¼ by 25½ inches)image including title.   ref: 1878  €800