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Houel is best known as the author of preparatory sketches and engravings with an explanatory text to the multi-volume publication A Picturesque Voyage Through the Isles of Sicily, Malta and Lipari, Which deals with the Antiquities to still be found there, the principal phenomena offered by Nature, the Costume of the Inhabitants, and some customs... . The Hermitage possesses 264 of over 500 sketches Houel produced during his tour of Southern Italy between 1776 and 1779.
The Greek town of Tindaris was founded by the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius I, in 396 BC. Houel's here combines objective precision in the depiction of a specific location with an emotional perception of the grandiose majesty of nature.