The book cover shows a portrait (oil on canvas) of Richard Pococke in eastern costume, by Swiss artist Jean-Etiènne Liotard (1740-1789). This portrait, which was inherited by his cousin Jeremiah Milles, is now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de la Ville de Genève. A preparatory miniature sketch in red-and-black chalk is in the Louvre (RF 1379, Recto) and is described in the inventory as, “Portrait de l'Archéologue et Théologien Richard Pococke”.
Liotard was a little known artist when he met with William Ponsonby (later Lord Duncannon and 2nd Earl of Bessborough), who was to become his most important patron owning over seventy of his paintings at his death. According to an account dictated to and recorded by the artist's son, their chance meeting arose when Liotard came across a group of English gentlemen in a café at Rome admiring a miniature of the Venus de Medici (his own, in fact), which they considered to be the best copy they had ever seen. This led 'le Chevalier Ponsomby' (sic), some months later, to persuade him to accompany him and his travelling companion (the Earl of Sandwich) on their Greek and Turkish voyage.
Liotard remained in Constantinople for several years taking portraits of many resident foreigners (such as merchants and diplomats and their families) as well as Grand Tourists, including Richard Pococke.
In Letter 35 of his Eastern correspondence, sent from Ephesus on 15/26 December 1739 (see Volume 3, p. 232), Pococke describes to his mother the outfit he is wearing, which (apart from his turban) corresponds with the one in the portrait:
"As to my habit; - now it is winter, I have a blew linnen garment lined with an ordinary fur & over that such a coarse great coat, as the common people here wear, these girded about me; - & today I wear a red cap turned up with black hair, & on the road a red cap of the strangers a sort of grade of the Grand Signr."
