John Frederick Lewis, R.A.

Possibly, Sale: Christie's, London, 24 May 1909, lot 145 (titled A Greek, Corfu)
Sale: Christies, London, 19 November 1970, lot 79
Spink, London
Purchased from the above by the present owner

In the autumn of 1840, John Frederick Lewis arrived in the cosmopolitan city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), where he met his good friend David Wilkie (1785-1841).  On 15 October, Wilkie wrote of his unexpected visitor to fellow artist William Collins (1788-1847):  ' . . . we were surprised by the arrival of John Lewis, from Italy, Corfu, Athens, and Smyrna.  He has been making most clever drawings, as usual,' (quoted in Allan Cunningham, The Life of Sir David Wilkie, London, 1843, vol. 3, p. 326).  Among these 'clever drawings' was A Corfiot Warrior Reclining, one of a handful of sketches that Lewis had executed in Corfu in July. In technique, it confirms Lewis' status as one of the preeminent draughtsmen of his day; in subject and composition, it serves as an instructive introduction to the extraordinary Orientalist compositions that he would later create.

Tucked into the corner of a cushioned divan, the mustachioed figure in Lewis' work adopts a comfortable pose.  His elaborate outfit, rendered in the sparest but most informative of lines, suggests the artist's interest in foreign costumes, as well as his technical facility.  (Lewis' oeuvre is filled with such single-figure studies, from his popular lithographic volume Sketches of Spain and Spanish Character, published in London in 1836, to his impossibly detailed paintings of Bedouin Arabs, Middle Eastern merchants, and Ottoman harem women, engaged in the trivial pursuits of their daily domestic life.  In each of these works, the subjects wear intricately wrought garments, which contemporaries relied upon for 'ethnographic' edification and which costume historians utilize even today.) 

Lewis' use of bodycolour in this image, or watercolour mixed with white pigments, is a hallmark of his mature style.  As the art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) noted in a series of effusive commentaries, it gave to Lewis' works on paper an unexpected solidity and a jewel-like brilliancy that rivaled even the greatest oils. The localized use of vibrant colour to highlight certain aspects of the composition is also typical of Lewis' drawings: more concentrated at the centre, it roots the figure in his or her setting, pulling them into the architectural context that Lewis has created. 

In the present work, the integration of the Corfiot warrior with his environment is masterfully balanced by the expressive and communicative quality of the sketch: as in so many of this artist's compositions, the man gazes outward, establishing a connection between subject and viewer.  This is just one of the ways that Lewis deftly shifts his picture from a mere costume study to the compelling portrait of a thinking individual.  Lewis' perfection of each of these tendencies – compelling realism, intensity of colour, and psychological engagement - would earn him unprecedented acclaim, including the Presidency of the Old Watercolour Society in 1855.

By the time this sketch was made in 1840, Lewis was already an established artist and an experienced traveler.  In 1827, he had made his first European tour, traveling throughout the Rhine Valley and Italy. In Venice, he was exposed to a mixture of cultures and ethnic groups: Lewis' sketches of a 'Turkish Habitation' in that city and of Turkish figures with their pipes are the first known examples of the Middle Eastern subjects that would dominate his art after 1841. In 1832, Lewis set off for Spain, following in the footsteps of Wilkie and travelling at the same time as another colleague and close acquaintance, David Roberts (1796–1864).  Lewis' two-year period of residency in that country was a prelude to his next extended excursion – a decade-long stay in Egypt.