Old Master & British Works on Paper

Old Master & British Works on Paper

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 225. A seated man in an interior, Asia Minor.

Property of a lady

William James Muller

A seated man in an interior, Asia Minor

Lot Closed

July 8, 02:19 PM GMT

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property of a lady

William James Muller

Bristol 1812 - 1845

A seated man in an interior, Asia Minor


Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil

333 by 463 mm

With Anthony Read, London
In the spring of 1843 Muller met the archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860). Fellows' journals which had described his earlier expedition to Lycia in south-west Turkey had aroused considerable interest and he was already planning another expedition. He suggested that Muller might like to visit at the same time and take advantage of the protection of the naval force which would apparently accompany them.

Muller readily accepted the invitation and on 12th September 1843 he and his pupil, Harry John Johnson (1826-1884) left England. They stopped for supplies at Smyrna before travelling on to Asia Minor and meeting up with Fellows' boat at the mouth of the River Xanthus. They spent three months in the remote Xanthus valley and made excursions to Pinara, Tlos and the port of Makri (now called Fethiye). 

Muller was to return from Lycia with, according to his first biographer N. Neal Solly, 'one or two hundred drawings', which are widely recognized as the finest achievements of his career.1  

While recalling his experiences with Muller, Johnson wrote that 'neither climate nor fatigue seemed to have any effect on his master, and at the day's close he never failed to return with one or more of those watercolour sketches that have since so powerfully excited the admiration of the art world, and stamped him as the most original and brilliant sketcher of any time'.2  

We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help when cataloguing this lot.

1. N. Neal Solly, Memoir of the Life of William Muller, London 1875, p. 200
2. N. Neal Solly, op. cit., pp. 207-8