The Architectural and Topographical views of Seville in the 1838 and 1864 sketchbooks of John Gardner Wilkinson (1797–1875)

Abstract

The Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson travelled extensively throughout Europe from 1817 to 1864 and yet little has been written about his travels other than those in Egypt. Neither has there been an analysis of his notebooks and sketchbooks in which he kept a visual and written record of these travels, potentially providing a rich seam for the historian to mine. His ability to draw architecture and topography can be appreciated in his many and varied drawings of Spain, which appear in these sketchbooks on five occasions between 1818, on his second venture abroad, and 1864 on his last. This paper evaluates the truthfulness of representation of a series of architectural and topographical views of Seville and its environs in 1838 and 1864, and it is discovered that in many instances they provide invaluable visual evidence of the appearance of lost or altered buildings and landscapes. Since these drawings are as yet unpublished, this present study makes a significant contribution both to the understanding of Wilkinson as a traveller in Spain, and to the nineteenth-century visual account of the architecture of Seville.