Sir Henry Byam Martin, Two Studies of Turkish Gentlemen

Son of the Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thomas Byam Martin (1773-1854), Henry Byam Martin was a senior Royal Naval Officer and amateur watercolour artist, producing figural and costume studies of the local populations on his travels throughout North and Central America, the Levant and Polynesia. He was promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1854 and was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1855 for his service in the Crimean War. This pair formed part of one of his sketchbooks.