Luigi Mayer (1755-1803) was a friend of his patron Sir Robert Ainslie, who commissioned the drawings of Egyptian sites reproduced in this book, as well as views of Palestine and the Ottoman Empire. The original drawings now reside in the British Museum. The present work contains 48 hand colored aquatints, including this interior view of the Great Pyramid. Not much is known about Mayer, other than that he studied under Piranesi and that the reproduced drawings contained in his published Views were both popular and praised for their evocativeness and accuracy. The aquatints in this book were produced by Thomas Milton, a great nephew of the poet John Milton.