Jacques Carrey

Jacques Carrey (12 January 1649 – 18 February 1726) was a French painter and draughtsman, now remembered almost exclusively for the series of drawings he made of the Parthenon, Athens, in 1674.

Carrey was recommended by his master to be included in the entourage of the embassy of de Nointel to Constantinople in August 1670 as a draughtsman.

As a result of this, between 1670 and 1679 Carrey executed over 500 drawings of towns, antiquities, ceremonies and examples of local fetes and customs in Asia Minor, Greece and Palestine.

[4] Since 20% of the Parthenon's sculpture was destroyed in the Venetian bombardment of 1687, Carrey's work is the sole record of much of this missing section.

His red and black chalk drawings, probably taken from life, meticulously record the cracks and other damage, making no attempt to complete missing details.