REY, Etienne. Voyage Pittoresque en Grèce et dans le Levant fait en 1843-1844, vols Ι-ΙΙ, Lyon, Louis Perrin, MDCCCLXVII [=1867].

Etienne Rey (1789-1867) was a French painter. He was one of the first professors at the École des Beaux-Arts of Lyon, as well as director of the Vienna Museum and School of Fine Arts. An excellent teacher, he published a manual on the art of encaustic painting and was member of several societies of artists. Rey travelled to the East at an advanced age, in 1843, in the company of his co-worker painter Α. Chenavard and architect J.M. Dalgabio. They started out from Marseilles, arrived in Greece by way of Italy and Malta, and toured Greece, Asia Minor and part of Egypt during five months.

Rey's engravings, which show subjects from Athens during Otto's reign, and images from the Peloponnese, Central Greece, Syros, Istanbul, the Troad and Smyrna area, were published approximantely twenty years after his voyage, because Rey wished to lithograph his original drawings himself. He died before his works could be published. The plates are accompanied by side notes on the journey, in the style of diary entries. The coloured engravings which show the monuments rather resemble watercolours.

Written by Ioli Vingopoulou