Edward John Poynter

Thomas Wardell, Esq., Rathgar, Dublin (and sold, his sale, Christie's London, May 29, 1880, lot 56)
Agnew's London (acquired at the above sale)
Robert Rankin, Esq. (and sold, his sale, Christie's, London, May 14, 1898, lot 69)
Richardson (acquired at the above sale)
Merton Russell-Cotes (and sold, his sale, Christie's, London, May 16, 1919, lot 138)
Sampson (acquired at the above sale)
The Fine Art Society, London

London, Royal Academy, 1871, no. 238

The Art Journal, 1871, p. 153
The Art Journal, 1874, p. 26,  illustrated opp.
Herbert Sharp, "The Work of Edward Poynter," Studio, vol. 7, 1896, p. 8
Cosmo Monkhouse, "Sir Edward J. Poynter, President of the Royal Academy, his Life & Work," The Easter Art Annual, 1897, p. 12, 32, illustrated p. 2 
Herman de Meulenaere, Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth Century Painting, Belgium, 1992, p. 108, illustrated opp.

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work has been cleaned fairly recently. The canvas has an old glue lining which is well supporting the paint layer. There are no structural damages and the paint layer is not abraded. There are a few retouches around the edges, particularly the bottom edge. The condition is very respectable within the picture itself. A fresh coat of varnish would perhaps be beneficial, but the picture could otherwise be hung as is, in its original frame.
"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."

Poynter painted a number of Egyptian subjects in the 1860s. Several of these, beginning in 1862 with Joseph introducing Jacob to Pharoah, and his greatest work in this vein, Israel in Egypt (Royal Academy, 1867, now Guildhall Art Gallery, London), treated the captivity of the Israelites. However, he has also painted a series of upright single figure compositions portraying the daily life and rituals of Ancient Egypt, for example On Guard in the time of the Pharoahs (1864, Private Collection), Offerings to Isis (1866, Newport Museum and Art Gallery, South Wales), and Adoration of Ra (1867). Feeding the Sacred Ibis in the Halls of Karnac seems to have been the last of this group. Though Poynter had not visited Egypt, his paintings were carefully researched and details of the architecture and hieroglyphs are generally accurately observed.

The source for this genre, relatively rare in British art, lies on the Continent. Poynter studied in Paris between 1856 and 1859 and spent much of that period in the atelier of Charles Gleyre. Gleyre had travelled to Egypt in 1834-35 and returned not only with a large number of watercolors of the ruins and people but with an abiding fascination with Egyptian culture. His most famous work, Le Soir (also known as Les Illusions Perdues), exhibited in 1843, drew on a view of Abydos on the Nile. It is noticeable that the other major artist exhibiting Egyptian subjects in London in the 1860s, Lawrence Alma-Tadema (whose monumental painting depicting an Ancient Egyptian subject, The Finding of Moses, sold in these rooms November 4, 2010, for $36 million), was also trained on the continent. Like Poynter, he moved from Egyptian to Roman and Grecian subjects in the early 1870s.