The Persian Porch represents architect Joseph Michael Gandy's visionary reconstruction of ancient Sparta. Based on the second-century A.D. description of the city and its monuments by Pausanias, Gandy envisioned an extravagant array of temples, statuary, and sacrificial altars. The actual remains of Sparta visible at this time were few, since fragments of the ancient city had been used to build the nearby Byzantine town of Mistra. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1816, this unpublished architectural fantasy is a primary document in English Neoclassicism.

The Getty Research Institute, Research Library has a number of works by Joseph Michael Gandy.

Gandy's work is featured in the J. Paul Getty Museum 1998 publication "A Luminous Land: Artists Discover Greece," by Richard Stoneman (no longer available).