The Trustees of the British Museum 1971, abridged, with plates and maps
In 1764 Chandler was introduced by Robert Wood, who had produced the Ruins of Palmyra to the Society of Dilettanti and sent by them, accompanied by Nicholas Revett, an architect, and William Pars, a painter, to explore the antiquities of Ionia and Greece (1764-1766). The Society's brief, drawn up 17 May 1764 was that the travellers make Smyrna their headquarters, and from there "..to make excursions to the several remains of antiquity in that neighbourhood; to make exact plans and measurements, to make accurate drawings of the bas-reliefs and ornaments... copying all the inscriptions you shall meet with, and keeping minute diaries." Having explored numerous sites in Anatolia and Ionian Islands, they continued to Athens, where they purchased fragments of sculpture from the Parthenon: "We purchased two fine fragments of the frieze which we found inserted over the doorways in the town, and were presented with a beautiful trunk which had fallen from the metopes, and lay neglected in the garden of a Turk". The result of their labours were the Ionian Antiquities in two magnificent folios published by the Dilettanti in 1769, and, later, Chandler's record of the tour, Travels in Greece, or an Account of a Tour Made at the Expense of the Society Of Dillettanti (1776)...