Portrait of a European in Oriental Dress, Possibly Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, John Frederick Lewis RA

John Frederick Lewis RA.

Portrait of a European in Oriental Dress, Possibly Sir John Gardner Wilkinson.

Watercolour over pencil and black chalk heightened with bodycolour.

Sheet 37.3 by 27.3 cm., 14 ¾ by 10 ¾ in.

This intriguing portrait of a European man in Oriental dress by John Frederick Lewis is likely to have been made during the artist’s decade-long sojourn in Egypt, 1841-51.  

During this time, Lewis lived in a large wooden, Ottoman-style house, in a district of Cairo ‘far away’, according to William Thackeray, ‘from the haunts of European civilisation’.  

While his attitude to the company of fellow Europeans was sometimes ambivalent, Lewis was frequently happy to mingle among the expatriate residents of the city, notably pioneers of Egyptian and Arab studies such as Edward William Lane, Henry Abbott and Joseph Bonomi.

All of these, as well as Lewis himself, habitually dressed in traditional  Ottoman clothes, which were then still worn by many of the local inhabitants, though gradually being replaced by the Westernised dress decreed by the recent Tanzimat reforms. 

Dimensions

Price on application

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance