Biography for William Pars

Employment

Pars studied in London, and for a time made a living as a portrait painter. In 1764 he was commissioned by the Society of Dilettanti ( a group of noblemen and others concerned with studying and recording the Antique) to travel to Asia Minor with Richard Chandler and Nicholas Revett. He made a number of remarkable watercolours, some of which were published in Ionian Antiquities (vol 1 - 1769, Vol 2 - 1797. Pars returned to Italy in 1775, again sponsored by the Society, and died in 1782, apparently from an illness contracted after standing in cold water at Tivoli outside Rome, while sketching the Grotto of Neptune.