John Frederick Lewis

The following condition report was kindly provided by Alvarez Fine Art Services, Inc.: Condition: Overall this gouache and watercolor on paper is in good condition. It shows no tears, pinholes, or any other structural disturbance. On the verso, the paper presents a generally abraded surface that appears fuzzy. This seems to denote a removal of other paper (or fiber) layers, which assumes the support was thicker then it is at present; a residual of a secondary support. Visually, the paper appears moderately oxidized and toned from contact with acidic material. This change in the color of the paper can be observed where the mat was covering its edges. To remedy this condition, which is not visually disturbing, would be a risk once the thick gouache would be unpredictably reactive to humidity. Otherwise, the pigments appear rich and undisturbed.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

After nearly ten years residence in Cairo, John Frederick Lewis returned to England in 1851, eager to build on the success of The Hhareem, exhibited the previous year at the Society of Painters in Water Colours, to huge popular and critical acclaim (no.147).  With a view to showing the variety of his Eastern experience, he began exhibiting a number of scenes depicting Bedouin Arabs with their camels in the Sinai desert, in the environs of the Red Sea.  Since these have very similar and almost interchangeable titles, it is difficult to establish which of them can be identified with the group of desert pictures by Lewis known today.  His first exhibit in this category, Halt in the Desert – Egypt, shown at the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1854 (no. 248), was described by a contemporary critic, thus: "The halt is that of travellers with camels and their drivers, presented under an almost vertical sun, and wayfaring over the boundless and unbroken arid plain, in contemplating which the eye is relieved only by dwelling on the minute pebbles which are strewn at the feet of the camels ... but the microscopic textures, those of the coats and trappings of the animals are marvellous in execution" (Art Journal, 1854, p.174).  The critic noted this watercolor's similarity to another in the same exhibition, Camels and Bedouins, Desert of the Red Sea (no. 305), which showed the same "extraordinary execution."  It is likely that these two exhibits are identifiable with the watercolors now known as Halt in the Desert (sold, Sotheby's London, April 24,  2012, lot 7, illustrated), and The Noonday Halt, dated 1853 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,  no. 716). 

The favorable critical reception of the two watercolors in 1854, and, equally important, their sale to two of the increasing number of middle-class collectors, must have encouraged Lewis to exhibit two further desert scenes at the Society of Painters in Water Colours the following year, The Well in the Desert, Egypt (no.135; probably the work now entitled A Halt in the Desert, Victoria and Albert Museum, London) and The Greeting in the Desert, Egypt (no.150; Shafik Gabr Collection, Cairo). Both sold and were well received, but the greatest accolades were to come in 1856 when Lewis exhibited his tour de force, A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mt. Sinai, 1842 (SPWC, no.134), praised by the influential Victorian critic, John Ruskin, for its microscopic attention to detail, as "among the most wonderful pictures in the world." He enthusiastically encouraged his readers to examine with a magnifying glass "the eyes of the camels, and he will find there is a much painting beneath their drooping fringes as would, with most painters, be thought enough for the whole head" (Academy Notes, 1856).

In addition to these complex and highly wrought exhibited pieces, are a group of related desert subjects, less elaborately composed and less minutely detailed, but, nevertheless, finished works in their own right.  The present watercolor is one such, its central camel identical to that in The Noonday Halt (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). Another example is the almost identical but slightly smaller Bedouin Arab and Two Camels (London, The Fine Art Society, North African Traveller Casablanca to Cairo, 1974, cat. no. 63).  Comparable in size and technique are at least two other watercolors: A Bedouin Encampment (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven) and Arab with Camels by a Tomb in the Desert (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), in which the central figures of camel and Bedouin are the same as those in Halt in the Desert (Sotheby's London, April 24, 2012, lot 7, illustrated). All these rely heavily on the brilliantly observed sketches of camels and Bedouin in their tents that Lewis made during his trips to the Sinai desert, one of which, Two Camels (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), is the basis for the two camels in the present watercolor.

A particular characteristic shared by this group of desert scenes is a striking plasticity, achieved through the dense application of opaque watercolor paint (gouache, or bodycolor, as it is known in Britain) which has helped to ensure the survival of the strong colors. Their position within Lewis's oeuvre seems to be an intermediary one between the preliminary sketches and the exhibited works, but not necessarily as studies for the latter. One of the group, Arab with Camels by a Tomb in the Desert (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), is dated 1858, which might suggest that the success of the exhibited works created a demand for similar but less expensive examples, which Lewis met with these watercolors made for sale direct to collectors.  Whatever their purpose, they clearly display both his superior knowledge of Bedouin life and his consummate skill in painting "intense light" (J. L. Roget, A history of the Old Water-Colour Society, London, 1891, vol. II, p.144). They also demonstrate his extraordinary ability, perfected as a young man, to depict the essential character of an animal. As a painter of camels, with their awkward contours and haughty demeanor, he had no equal.

We would like to thank Briony Llewellyn for writing this catalogue entry.