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Watercolour and black chalk heightened with bodycolour

34.5 by 17.8 cm., 13 ½ by 7 in.

 

Provenance:

The Artist John Phillip (1817-1867), his sale, Christie's, 31st May 1867, lot 33;

Mr Wyatt, Poole

 

Lewis was in Spain from 1832 until 1834. This watercolour was in the collection of the artist John `Spanish’ Phillip, R.A. (1817-1867) who visited Spain three times in the 1850s and painted Spanish genre subjects. His figure studies are much influenced by Lewis.

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Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour on buff paper

37.3 by 53.9 cm., 14 ? by 21 inches

 

Provenance:

With Agnew?s, London;

Private Collection, U.K.

 

In 1840, Lewis travelled from London, via Italy, Greece and Turkey, to Cairo where he remained for the next ten years living as a local in an Ottoman house and dressing in Turkish costume. The sketches, such as the present drawing, which he made during this period gave him material for the rest of his life. Lewis often travelled into the desert to sketch the Bedouin people and their way of life. He liked the peace of the desert, the place where ?there were no crowds to jostle? (see Major-General Michael Lewis, John Frederick Lewis, R.A., 1978, p.23).

 

A similarly sized drawing by Lewis of the same encampment is in Leeds City Art Gallery and a fully worked-up watercolour of a Bedouin encampment with similar tents is in the Yale Center for British Art (see Baskett and Snelgrove, English Drawings and Watercolors 1550-1850 in the Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon, 1972, no.145, ill.).

 

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Inscribed lower right: Sorrento/Aug 21

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour

39.5 by 27.3 cm., 15 ½ by 10 ¾ in.

 

Provenance:

J.G.L. Goff

 

Lewis left London in 1837 and went to Italy via Paris where he remained for two years.

 

Dates on surviving watercolours by Lewis suggest he had arrived in Sorrento by 10th August 1839, was on Capri 12th to 14th and Procida 28th to 29th. The date of 21st August on the present work suggests he returned to Sorrento, on the mainland between Capri and Procida.

 

The sitter is probably a Franciscan monk from the monastery of San Francesco in Sorrento.