Head of a Fox

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: Head of a Fox
Signed:
Medium: Watercolor
Size:
British Orientalist

A Pulpit in the Cathedral of Salerno

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: A Pulpit in the Cathedral of Salerno
Signed:
Medium: Pencil and chalk on paper
Size: 178 x 260 mm
American Orientalist

Study for The Courtyard of the Coptic Patriarch House, Cairo

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: Study for The Courtyard of the Coptic Patriarch House in Cairo 1864
Signed:
Medium: Oil on wood
Size: 368 x 356 mm

The Coptic Church is the ancient Orthodox Christian Church of Egypt. This study of the patriarch’s house was executed after Lewis’s return from Egypt in 1851, using the sketches he brought back. This work highlights Lewis’s ability to paint figures and setting with careful attention to light and shade, produced here by the top-lit courtyard.Lewis caused a sensation when he exhibited one of his Near Eastern scenes in London in 1850. John Ruskin admired his attention to detail, claiming that in truth-to-nature he ranked alongside the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Edfu Upper Egypt

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: Edfu, Upper Egypt 1860
Signed:
Medium: Oil on Panel
Size:
American Orientalist

The Siesta

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: The Siesta,1876
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 886 x 1111 mm


The artist Edward Lear said of Lewis’s Near Eastern subjects ‘There never have been, and there never will be, any works depicting Oriental life more truly beautiful and excellent’.A trip to Spain in the early 1830s kindled Lewis’s interest in ‘exotic’ lands, and in 1841 he settled in Cairo for ten years. On his return to England he earned a reputation for images of the Near East painted in watercolor or oils. Characterized by their bright colors and attention to detail, they often show languid figures, especially women in harems, who are often given western features.
Source: Tate Gallery

Sleeping Lion and Lioness

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: Sleeping Lion and Lioness , c1820
Signed:
Medium:
Size:
British Orientalist

Head of a Lion 1824

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: Head of a Lion 1824
Medium: Watercolor on paper
Size: 343 x 260 mm
British Orientalist

Biography of John Frederick Lewis (1805-1876)

John Frederick Lewis is the one of the greatest British Orientalist painters. Many of his wonderful paintings belong to private collectors and are highly sought after when they appear at auction.

Lewis was born in London in 1805, to a master engraver, Frederick Christian Lewis. It is only fair to assume that as a child Lewis must have seen the intricate work of his father, leaving an impression and love for detail from early on. Much of his earlier life was spent primarily as a painter of animals.

In 1827 he set up his own studio and began to work almost entirely in watercolor. Between 1827 and 1832 he underwent what is termed as a "transitional period" by Lewis' biographer and ancestor, Michael Lewis, where his subject matter changed to landscapes and figures. As a member of the Society of Painters in Watercolor, his work was highly praised, gaining him the title of president of the Society of Painters in Watercolors from 1855 through 1858.

Around 1827 he started to travel with his father to Scotland, followed by trips to Spain, Italy and the East. He kept sketchbooks, documenting the wonderful sites that impressed him. These sketchbooks eventually were published as “Drawings of the Alhambra “and “Spanish Characters”. Lewis not only travelled to different regions, but he also lived in Italy and Egypt for extended periods of time.

While residing in Cairo, Lewis seemed to have taken a liking to a seemingly more relaxed life style. William Makepeace Thackeray, found him there, sporting eastern garb living the life of a Turkish pasha with attending servants and abandoning all European manners. Thackeray even went as far as giving a detailed account of Lewis dress in his “Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Cairo (1846), saying: “”He wore a handsome grave costume of dark blue … consisting of an embroidered jacket and sported a “Damascus scimitar on his thigh.”

What is very intriguing about Lewis Orientalist paintings is that he often portrayed himself as one of the characters. It is as if he would have rather been an Easterner than a member of British’s society. Dressed in oriental garb, wearing a full bearded he usually confronts the viewer head on.


“It is well documented that Lewis had a sort of love-hate relationship when it came to art connoisseurs. Publishers were, in his terms “sharks”, art critics “not overly good natured”, and collectors, on the whole, almost comical in the ease with which they could be manipulated.” (Source: Fine Art Connoisseur Feb 2007)

In 1851, married Lewis settled down for good in England at Walton –on Thames and devoted himself for the remainder of his career almost exclusively to Eastern subjects. These he treated with extraordinary attention to minute detail. Lewis used pure white and gouache (watercolor mixed with white pigment) to create brilliant images of images of the East, developing a style that appealed greatly to the “nouveau riches” of English society.

In 1859 he became an associate of the Royal Academy and he exhibited mainly paintings of Oriental subject. John Frederick Lewis suffered a great deal in his last years, and was confined to a wheelchair by the spring of 1876. He died at home in the summer of the same year and is buried in Frimley near the Hampshire border.


1805 born in London - the son of a master engraver, Frederick Christian Lewis.
In the early years of his career, Lewis was primarily a painter of animals.
1820 Sleeping Lion and Lioness
1824 Head of a Lion
1827 He set up his own studio and began to work almost completely in watercolor
1827 elected as an associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colors
1829 became full member of the Society of Painters in Water Colors
1829 he accompanied his father to Devonshire and later traveled extensively through Scotland.
1832 traveled to Spain and down to Granada and Morocco
1834 Courtyard of the Alhambra
1835 published "Sketches and Drawings of the Alhambra"
1836 published "Sketches of Spain and Spanish Character"
1837 spent the winter in Paris
moved to Italy for 2 year
1838 Spanish Girl Wearing a Mantilla - Red and black chalks and Indian ink with watercolors and bodycolours on buff board
1839 Two Southern Italian Peasants Playing the Bagpipes, Watercolor and bodycolours and black chalk over pencil, on buff paper
1841 Easter Day at Rome
1841 first trip to Cairo
1841 - 1850 lived in Cairo, Egypt
1851 returned to England and lived in Walton-on-Thames until his death.
1851 Home of the Artist in Cairo
1855 elected president of the Society of Painters in Water Colors
1858 resigned as president of the Society of Painters in Water Colors
1859 became associate of the Royal Academy
1864 Hosh Courtyard of Coptic Patriarch 1864
1865 named academician of the Royal Academy
1869 Intercepted Correspondence
1872 The Bezestein Bazaar of El Khan Khali, Cairo
1873 Reception
1875 Cairo Bazaar
1875 Midday Meal
1876 The Siesta
Year? Head of a Fox
Year? Pulpit in Cathedral of Salerno
Year? Almeh Flirting with Armenian Policeman
Year? Street and Mosque at Ghooreyah Cairo
Year? Study of Spanish Figures
Year? Eastern Beauty
Year? Women
Year? Tomb of the Sultan
1876 died

The Midday Meal, Cairo

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: The midday meal, Cairo 1875
Signed: yes
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 34.8 x 45 in. / 88.3 x 114.3 cm.
British Orientalist

Intercepted Correspondence

Artist: John Frederick Lewis
Title: An Intercepted Correspondence, Cairo
Signed and dated 1869
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 29 ¼ by 34 3/8 in (74.3 by 87.3cm)
British Orientalist

In content and composition, as well as in execution, this is the most complex of Lewis’s harem scenes. The left-hand side is related to a watercolor now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The picture depict a woman of the harem, caught before her master in possession of a bouquet of flowers from an illicit lover. Contemporary accounts of education in the Middle East stressed that reading and writing were unusual accomplishments for women. Flowers would therefore be used as love letters, each flower having a particular significance. In 1869, the year the Intercepted Correspondence was painted, The Young Ladies’ Journal published The language of Flowers, whose preface stated that this form of communication had originated in the Middle East. The book’s glossary would lead to the following interpretation of the flowers in Lewis’s picture:

- the pansy, or heart’s ease, exhorts the receiver to think of the giver
- the anemone signifies that the giver feels forsaken
- the hibiscus syriacum praises the receiver’s honesty
- the roses symbolize love

In the vase beside the master of the harem:
- the larkspur would symbolize haughtiness
- the rose love
-The scarlet dahlia instability

Here is a painting I have done called Poppy Field, where I have incorporated flower symbolism and explained my thought process in creating the painting.