Luigi Mayer
Pioneering painter of Ottoman landscapes
Luigi Mayer was an Italian-German artist and one of the earliest and most important late 18th-century European painters of the Ottoman Empire. Mayer was a close friend of Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet, a British ambassador to Turkey between 1776 and 1792, and the bulk of his paintings and drawings during this period were commissioned by Ainslie. He travelled extensively through the Ottoman Empire between 1776 and 1794, and became well known for his sketches and paintings of panoramic landscapes of ancient sites from the Balkans to the Greek Islands, Turkey and Egypt, particularly ancient monuments and the Nile. Many of the works were amassed in Ainslie's collection, which was later presented to the British Museum, providing a valuable insight into the Middle East of that period. His wife, Clara Barthold Mayer, worked as his assistant and produced her own paintings.
Artworks by this artist (100 total)
- Bridge over The Brook Kedron 1804
- Pera 1810
- Sepulchres of the kings of Judah 1804
- View of the Dardanelles
- View near Bucharest 1810
- A Maronite Monk and Pilgrims 1804
- Cathedral at Tortosa 1810
- Temple of Jupiter Ammon in Libya 1810
- Arab men discovering the interior of a pyramid
- Pillar to which was affixed the sentence passed on our Saviour 1804
- Sepulchre of Rachel 1804
- Tomb in the Valley of Jehoshaphat 1804
- Monument between Tripoli and Tortosa 1810
- Pitesti 1810
- Base of a colossal Column near Syracuse 1810
- Monument on the Coast of Syria 1810
- Part of Jerusalem 1810
- Part of the grand gallery of the Temple of Diana 1810
- Ruins of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus 1810
- Crater in the Island of Stromboli 1810