The Western European perception of Greece around 1800 was characterized by a tension between the idealization of its ancient past and a relative ignorance of the 'real' country, which had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the 15th century. British travelers were particularly prominent in Greece, represented by figures such as Lord Elgin and Lord Byron. At the same time, it was British art theory, with its aesthetic categories, that shaped the so-called 'rediscovery' and thus a confrontation of expectation and experience of Greece in imagery. 'Hellas' took on a new form in the drawings of traveling artists. The visual appropriation of landscapes, monuments, and folklore permanently defined the British image of Greece stylistically and iconographically between Philhellenism and Orientalism. It allowed for an ideal appropriation of the country and its cultural heritage, though not a colonial one.