JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS, R.A.
(1805-1876)

 

The Pipe-Bearer

1859

watercolour, pencil and bodycolour on paper

38.3 x 21.3 cm

inscribed: JFL  ARA 1859 

P.305

This kind of Egyptian figure-study became very popular among Victorian collectors who admired the high finish and meticulous detail typical of Lewis’s work at this date. Despite the accuracy of detail, it was painted in Surrey, eight years after leaving Cairo.

Like the Pre-Raphaelites, Lewis adopted the technique of painting watercolour on a white ground to reinforce the intensity of colour.

EJ/CB

PROVENANCE: Humphrey Roberts; Gilbert Davies; Sotheby’s 19 March 1958, lot no.54; P&D Colnaghi Ltd, from whom purchased by Gallery, October 1959.

EXHIBITIONS: London, R.A., 1862, no.812 as Egyptian Servant; Winter Exhibition, London, R.A., 1906, no.52; Water-colours from the Gilbert Davies Collection, London, Arts Council, 1949, no.70; Watercolours and Drawings from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no.46; English Watercolours from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, Reading, Reading Museum and Art Gallery, 1965, no.34; The English Tradition: an exhibition of watercolours from two private collections, Bedford, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, 1972, no.52; The Great Age of British Watercolours 1750-1880, London, RA and Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1993, no.201.

REFERENCES: M. Lewis, John Frederick Lewis, 1978, p.94, no.578; A. Wilton & A. Lyles, The Great Age of British Watercolours 1750-1880, 1993, p.306, pl.313; J. Welton, Looking at Pictures, 1994, p.25. 

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.