GIScience integrated with computer vision for the interpretation and analysis of old paintings

Photographs of Ottoman Palestine are available only from the 2nd half of the 19th century onward. Thus, in order to reconstruct the landscape at the time one should rely on other visual sources such as old paintings. To do so, their accuracy and completeness must be addressed first. In this paper we analyse a painting from 1823 by the British Sir Frederick Henniker that drew the Old City of Jerusalem when standing somewhere on the Mount of Olives. We use GIScience techniques with computer vision capabilities to resolve the exact location where the artist stood as well as verifying errors and completeness of the painting. Preliminary results demonstrate that the location of the artist when drawing the painting was on top of Mount of Olives (close to present-day 7 arches hotel) rather at the Cave of the Apostles as cited in the NLI librarian citation. Additionally, the accuracy of his work was verified by comparing the features he drew on the canvas to their actual location on a present-day photograph.