Antoine Castellain, painter

Antoine Laurent Castellan (1772–1838) was a French painter and designer, member of the French Academy of Arts. He wrote «Letters on Greece, the Hellespont, and Constantinople» in 1811, «Manners and Customs of the Ottomans» in 1812, «Description of a Pumping Machine in Use in the East» in 1811, and others. He painted landscapes and scenes of everyday life when he traveled to the East. He was in Kythira in January 1797, when he was traveling to Constantinople. He wrote about his experiences from the trip in a book published in 1808, entitled “Lettres sur la Morée” (Letters on Morea), which contained illustrations from his own drawings. The image of the cave in one of his works on Kythira is thought to be the one in the small ravine of Skafidi, in Avlemonas. Also, the most famous of his drawings is the depiction of Avlemonas with the fortress (Castello). In his book, he refers in detail to the archaeological site on the island and the columns of the presumed temple of Aphrodite. Castellano died in 1838.