Collections : [Yale University -Yale Center for British Art]

Porcher's depiction of Nathan Davis's residence while at Camart, as seen through an archway, opposite. The Harpy arrived at La Goulette on May 14, and sailed the same day for Utica (see logbook).

This image was engraved for Nathan Davis's Carthage and Her Remains (page 387). Whereas Porcher's watercolor is in a very loose style, and includes three figures, the engraving adds two additional figures conversing. It also renders the palace on the hill more visible. Davis describes the "Jebel Khawi," the Catacomb Hills at Camart as a vast network of catacombs. "To the right in our sketch" the excavations unearthed the ruins of a Roman mausoleum, and remove some pavement and a broken statue. The date of Porcher's watercolors suggests that he returned to the site to produce additional watercolors for Davis's publication (post-dates Davis expedition).

Mounted on the same card with "77. The Tombs of Dr. Fallon and J. Triggs (Seaman) who were drowned near the town of Farina, in the Gulf of Tunis."

Malta's historical association with St. Paul is linked to the biblical account of his shipwreck, said to have occurred off the island's coast at a site today known as St. Paul's Bay. Pictured here by Porcher, a colossal statue of St. Paul was erected in the nineteenth century on Salmone (referred to as "Selmoon Island").

Mounted on the same card with "76. Light house on the Cani Rocks, at the entrance of the Gulf of Tunis. June 29, 1860."

Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt commissioned the aqueduct bearing his name, which appears in Porcher's drawing. Constructed in 1615 by the architect Bontadino de Bontadini, it supplied fresh water to the city of Valletta from the plateau at the island's interior (Phillips n.p.).

Nathan Davis describes Porto Farina as "an unwalled town…situated at the foot of a row of hills, and near a large lake, at the extremity of which there is a very handsome large basin for holding the men-of-war and cruisers belonging to Tunis, it being the safest and best port belonging to the kingdom" (Davis 403).

This watercolor was engraved and published as "A View of the Site of Utica" in Nathan Davis' Carthage and Her Remains (page 414). The engraving omits the seated figures and inverts the two main figures and the horse, adding a running figure with a musket. Davis writes: "At the exact time specified by Lord Lyons, HM steamer "Harpy" arrived. She was commanded by Lieut. Porcher, who was instructed by the admiral not only to convey me to the sites of the various ancient cities above named, but to render me every assistance in his power – instructions which this officer was ready to carry out, and did carry out to the best of his abilities." Porcher and his crew (praised by Davis as "sturdy marines") assisted with the removal and transportation of a number of mosaics and sculpture from the excavation site at Utica, which according to Davis was once on the water but now "seven or eight miles' distance from the sea". Utica aided Rome in the destruction of Carthage. Davis describes the area as already "ransacked of building materials," and yet "marble and granite shaft, capitals, and cornices of every order, size and dimension, which lie about here in all directions, are certainly a great attraction for antiquarian research" (409).