JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS, R.A. | A veiled Egyptian girl, Cairo

With Lowell Libson, London, by 2010

B. Llewellyn, ‘The Woman in Blue: John Frederick Lewis’s Cairo figure studies’, Lowell Libson Ltd. catalogue British Paintings Watercolours and Drawings, 2010, pp. 92 & 93, fig. 2

Lewis probably executed this finely observed figure study in Cairo, where he lived between late 1841 and early 1851. Although the identity of the model is currently unknown, a number of others studies of her exist. A watercolour showing her in a similar pose to the present sheet is in the Ford Collection, while another - showing her facing more towards the viewer - was sold at Sotheby's, 14 April 1994, lot  502. We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help when cataloguing this work.