John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
A Syrian Sheik, Egypt, c. 1856
Oil on panel
H 43.1 x W 30.4 cm
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Leaving Rome early in 1840, Lewis travelled to Constantinople, seeing Albania, Corfu, Athens and Smyrna en route. He spent the best part of a year in the Levant, but in November 1841, at the age of thirty-six, he sailed for Egypt.
John Frederick Lewis RA (London 14 July 1804 – 15 August 1876) was a British Orientalist painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes. He lived for several years in a traditional mansion in Cairo, and after his return to England in 1851 he specialized in highly detailed works showing both realistic genre scenes of Middle Eastern life and more idealized scenes in upper-class Egyptian interiors with little apparent Western influence.
John Frederick Lewis
Spanish peasants at Ronda, Spain
Pencil and watercolour, heightened with bodycolour
12 x 16½ in. (30.5 x 42 cm.)
Private collection
Ronda is a town in the Spanish province of Málaga. It is located within the autonomous community of Andalusia.
John Frederick Lewis
The Bridge of Rondo
Watercolour heightened with bodycolour
33 x 46cm (13 x 18 1/8in)
Private collection
John Frederick Lewis
Asking for alms
Watercolour with scratching out heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic
29 x 40.5cm (11 7/16 x 15 15/16in)
Private collection
John Frederick Lewis
Arrival at a Spanish shrine
watercolour heightened with bodycolour, gum arabic and scratching out over pencil
31.5 x 49.5cm (12 3/8 x 19 1/2in).
Private collection
The present lot is one of a small number of paintings Lewis made of the Spanish countryside. Lewis lived in Spain between 1832 and 1834. In Madrid Lewis copied paintings in the Prado, and these watercolors were acquired by the Royal Scottish Academy in 1853. From Madrid, Lewis travelled to Toledo to Granada and the Alhambra where he made many sketches of Moorish architecture. Finally Lewis visited Seville, a city that he loved, especially the processions and celebrations during Holy Week. In 1834 Lewis returned to London for two years when Sketches and Drawings of the Alhambra(1835) and Lewis' Sketches of Spain and Spanish Character (1836) were published. More on this painting
His very representation of Islamic architecture, furnishings, screens, and costumes set new standards of realism. Unlike many other Orientalist painters who took a salacious interest in the women of the Middle East, he "never painted a nude", and his wife modelled for several of his harem scenes.
John Frederick Lewis
Hylas and the Nymphs
Oil on board framed in the oval
14 1/8 x 11 5/8 in.
Private collection
Hylas and the Nymphs is a painting depicts a moment from the Greek and Roman legend of the tragic youth Hylas, based on accounts by Ovid and other ancient writers.
Hylas was the son of King Theiodamas of the Dryopians. After Hercules killed Hylas's father, Hylas became a companion of Hercules. They both became Argonauts, accompanying Jason in his quest on his ship Argo in seeking the Golden Fleece. During the journey, Hylas was sent to find fresh water. He found a pond occupied by Naiads, and they lured Hylas into the water and he disappeared. More on this painting
Lewis toured Europe in 1827, the year he began to paint in watercolour, then travelled in Spain and Morocco between 1832 and 1834. For a while he became known as "Spanish Lewis", to distinguish him from "Indian Lewis", his brother Frederick Christian, who went to India in 1834 before dying young.
Easter Day at Rome
Watercolor
30 x 53 in.
Sunderland Art Gallery
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
The Curiosity Shop in Venice, c. 1832–1840
Watercolour on paper
H 48.5 x W 63.5 cm
McLean Museum and Art Gallery
John Frederick Lewis
The Bull Fight, Plaza de Toros, Seville, c. 1838
Watercolour on paper
H 29.2 x W 44.2 cm
McLean Museum and Art Gallery
Lewis was an early traveller on what was to become a well-trodden route for English artists, though some ten years behind David Wilkie in Spain. David Roberts was in Spain and the Middle East at the same time as Lewis, though the two rarely met, and William James Müller had been in Cairo in 1838.
In Egypt he made large numbers of precise drawings that he turned into paintings after his return to England in 1851. He lived in Walton-on-Thames from 1854 until his death. In 1850 his watercolour The Hareem was a huge hit when exhibited in London, and praised by John Ruskin and other critics. This is in fact the "only major work certainly completed" in Cairo before his return.
Lewis became an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1859 and a member (an RA) in 1865, and was President of the Society of Painters in Water Colours from 1855, though this was just as he was abandoning the technique for oils. The Society did not allow members to exhibit works in oils, which Lewis now wanted to do, and he resigned in 1858.
Lewis continued to paint and exhibit almost up to the end of his life, but in 1873 he seems to have suffered a crisis in his health from which he never recovered before his death in 1876. After being largely forgotten for decades, he became extremely fashionable, and expensive, from the 1970s and good works now fetch prices into the millions of dollars or pounds at auction. More on John Frederick Lewis
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876
An Oriental Interior (A Startling Account, Constantinople), c. 1863
Oil on panel
H 32.4 x W 20 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum
In a Turkish interior, a rich Persian is upbraiding his shifty-looking servants, having been presented with alarmingly high household bills. For some unexplained reason, Lewis does not indicate that it is also a portrait of Prince Hulugu Mirza, the cousin of the reigning Shah of Persia.
Lewis and the painter David Wilkie were both in Constantinople in 1840, and both had visited and produced several portraits of the Prince, his servants and his new Circassian slave. Hulugu was in exile, as his father had tried unsuccessfully to seize the throne. According to David Wilkie the Prince was 'living at Constantinople on a pension allowed him by the Turkish Government. Having been active in political intrigue, his return to his native country would be unwelcome to the existing power, and dangerous to himself.' Presumably the pension was not big enough to pay all the bills. Wilkie had wanted to use the noble head of the Prince as a model for a figure of Christ, while Lewis (perhaps aware of Wilkie's intention) slyly portrays the Prince as an all-too-human being. More on this painting
In 1837 he left for travels that took him to Constantinople in 1840, after Italy and Greece. He continued to Egypt and lived in Cairo in rather grand style between 1841 and 1851, in a traditional upper-class house that he often used as a setting for his paintings. Lewis's house in Cairo was in the quarter to the north known as the Ezbekiyah, near the Bab-el-luk gate and the great mosque of Sultan Hassan. Like so much of Cairo at the time, it was a mean-looking and crowded area, though not without some fine buildings, including the new Hotel d'Orient, and spacious squares. In 1847 he married Marian Harper in Alexandria.
John Frederick Lewis
Study for ‘The Courtyard of the Coptic Patriarch’s House in Cairo’, c.1864
Oil paint on wood
368 × 356 mm
Tate
The Coptic Church is the ancient Orthodox Christian Church of Egypt. This study of the patriarch’s house was executed after Lewis’s return from Egypt in 1851, from the sketches he brought back. The picture highlights Lewis’s skill in depicting figures and setting with careful attention to light and shade, produced here by the top-lit courtyard. Lewis caused a sensation when he exhibited one of his Near Eastern scenes in London in 1850. More on this painting
In Egypt he made large numbers of precise drawings that he turned into paintings after his return to England in 1851. He lived in Walton-on-Thames from 1854 until his death. In 1850 his watercolour The Hareem was a huge hit when exhibited in London, and praised by John Ruskin and other critics. This is in fact the "only major work certainly completed" in Cairo before his return.
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
Entrance to a Harem, c. 1871
Oil on wood panel
H 29.9 x W 19.7 cm
The Higgins Bedford, Castle Lane, Bedford
Entrance to a Harem, c. 1871
Oil on wood panel
H 29.9 x W 19.7 cm
The Higgins Bedford, Castle Lane, Bedford
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
The Hhareem, Cairo, ca. 1850
The Hhareem of a Mamluke Bey, Cairo; the introduction of an Abyssinian Slave
Watercolour
Height: 47cm, Width: 67.3cm
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
The scene is laid in the upper or women's apartments of a house in Cairo. The Master (a Bey and a Turk) is habited in the old Mamluke dress of Egypt. Immediately to his left is seated a Georgian the "Sit el Gebir" or ruling lady of the Hhareem, having obtained that privilege by being the mother of his eldest son, who is leaning against her knee. The lady stooping forward is a Greek and the one reclining at the Bey's feet, a Circassian. The laughing slave - an old inmate. The girl who is being unveiled by the black guardian is also an Abyssinian, but lately arrived from the upper country, and brought into the Hhareem by the wife of the slave owner, who is a fellah, and is seated in the middle distance, habited in the out-door dress of the common people. The boy to the right is a Nubian, who is bringing in a sheetha or narghile. On the divan and near the boy are gazelles, the frequent indoor and out-door pets of all classes. The windows, which are often of an enormous size, are all covered with the finest carved wood-work, at a distance resembling lace, and which does not prevent the inmates from seeing all that is passing, while it effectively precludes the possibility of being seen from without. The walls of all old houses are whitewashed, and only ornamented with borders, often of texts in Arabic from the Qur'an; the elaborately carved dark wood-work of the ceilings contrasts effectively with the whitewash of the walls. The rooms have no furniture save the divans, mats or carpets, no tables or chairs, the dinner being served on a round tray of silver or brass, and placed on a stool; as is represented on the right of the picture. Coffee is being brought in by the attendants in the background.' More on this painting
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
In the Bey's Garden, c. 1865
Oil on panel
H 143 x W 105 cm
Harris Museum & Art Gallery
The figure cutting flowers is meant to be the wife of a Bey, or Turkish provincial governor, but is actually the artist’s wife, Marian. Lewis painted her many times, often wearing the same green jacket. Lewis travelled widely and lived in Cairo for 10 years from 1841 where he dressed in local costume. Back in Britain, he continued to paint Orientalist themes for the rest of his career. More on this painting
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
The Bazaar, Cairo (The Bezestein Bazaar of El Khan Khalil, Cairo), c. 1872
Watercolour & bodycolour on paper
H 57.3 x W 43 cm
The Higgins Bedford
The district of Khan el-Khalili, home to a vast network of markets, was one of the most important trading centers in Cairo. Also known as the Turkish bazaar during the Ottoman period, the complex dates back to the fourteenth century when it was built by the Emir Djaharks el-Khalili in the heart of the Fatimid city in medieval Cairo.
The market Lewis has depicted is in fact the great Ghuriyya market, the main cloth market of Cairo and a southern extension of El Khan Khalili. Named after the ruling 16th Century Sultan Al-Ghuri. A long narrow structure with vaulted ceilings, the market is defined by rows of stalls where merchants display their fine silks and fabrics. More on this painting
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
Edfu, Upper Egypt, c. 1860
Oil on wood
H 29.8 x W 77.5 cm
Tate
The ancient ruins at Edfu are situated between Luxor and Aswan, in Egypt. It was unusual for Lewis to focus on the topography of Egypt, although the architecture remains subservient to the Bedouin encampment in the foreground. The picture was painted from drawings which Lewis had made while living in Cairo during the 1840s.
In this picture, painted once he was back in England, Lewis typically focuses on contemporary figures and their animals, rather than on the ancient ruins at Edfu. An Arab chief reclines on the ground, while his two camels, laden with pack-saddles, are resting. Just visible behind the animals is a white canvas tent, pitched between the walls of Edfu and its temple. The scene is set against a vast panorama: the distant plain dotted with palm trees, and beyond it the river Nile, bordered by a chain of hills on the horizon. The temple of Edfu is clearly visible on the left with its well-preserved inscriptions, but a preparatory drawing reveals that Lewis moved the minaret to the right in order to accommodate the bedouin tent. His aim was evidently to include elements of the ancient (the temple), the medieval (the mosque) and the modern (the tent). More on this painting
John Frederick Lewis (1805–1876)
The Harem - Introduction of an Abyssinian slave, c. 1860s
The Harem - Introduction of an Abyssinian slave, c. 1860s
I have no further description, at this time
John Frederick Lewis(1805-1876)
Life in the Hareem, Cairo
Oil on canvas
Private collection
John Frederick Lewis(1805-1876)
Indoor Gossip, Cairo
Oil on canvas
Private collection
John Frederick Lewis (British, 1805-1876)
The midday meal, Cairo, c. 1875
Oil on canvas
34¾ x 45 in. (88.3 x 114.3 cm.)
Private collection
The midday meal, Cairo is not only one of Lewis's largest paintings but one of his last. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1876, together with a smaller oil, A Cairo bazaar: The dell'al, and a watercolour, On the banks of the Nile, upper Egypt. A few months after the exhibition opened, on 14 August, he died at his home at Walton-on-Thames, aged 71. Only one more work was to appear at the R.A., an unfinished canvas being shown by way of a memorial in 1877. More on this painting
Lewis became an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1859 and a member (an RA) in 1865, and was President of the Society of Painters in Water Colours from 1855, though this was just as he was abandoning the technique for oils. The Society did not allow members to exhibit works in oils, which Lewis now wanted to do, and he resigned in 1858.
John Frederick Lewis
A VEILED EGYPTIAN GIRL, CAIRO
Bodycolour over traces of pencil
396 by 285 mm
Private collection
John Frederick Lewis (British, 1805-1876)
An Arab of the desert of Sinai, c. 1858
Oil on panel
17 1/8 x 12 in. (43.5 x 30.5 cm.)
Private collection
Seated in eastern fashion with one leg tucked under him, and the other serving as a prop for his right arm, is a middle-aged man wearing Arab clothes. Positioned right at the front of the picture plane and spatially confined by the woven horizontally striped pattern of the goat's wool tent, the figure immediately engages the viewer's attention, even though his gaze is oblique rather than direct. More on this painting
Lewis continued to paint and exhibit almost up to the end of his life, but in 1873 he seems to have suffered a crisis in his health from which he never recovered before his death in 1876. After being largely forgotten for decades, he became extremely fashionable, and expensive, from the 1970s and good works now fetch prices into the millions of dollars or pounds at auction. More on John Frederick Lewis
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