The Parthenon at Sunset, Athens

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Artist: Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900)
Medium: Oil and graphite on paperboard
Size: 22.5 × 32.8 cm (8 7/8 × 12 15/16 in.)
Museum: Smithsonian Institution
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Landscape and architecture sketch showing a view of the Parthenon and the Acropolis at sunset in Athens, Greece. In the immediate foreground, a fluted column drum (or cylindrical segment of a fluted column) stands at lower left, with its center hole clearly visible. Another column fragment is loosely rendered at right. Loosely rendered in brown and green, the foreground terrain ascends gently toward the middle distance.

The Parthenon is situated atop this rise at center, with its eastern facade facing the viewer. Standing near the southeastern corner of the structure, the viewer faces west. In the background at left, the Piraeus (or port city of Athens) is visible along the edge of the Saronic Gulf, as the rugged mountains of Salamis are included along the horizon. The Parthenon itself is backlit by the glow of the setting sun, which casts distant clouds in shades of saturated pink and lends the sky a luminous, warm gradient.