Mavi Boncuk |John Frederick Lewis,
A Young Turkish Woman
Drawing & Watercolor
between 1841 and 1851
Watercolor, white gouache, black chalk and graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper mounted on heavy card
Sheet: 16 5/8 x 11 1/8 inches (42.2 x 28.3 cm)Mount: 16 5/8 x 11 1/8 inches (42.2 x 28.3 cm)
the Yale Center for British Art.
[1] John Frederick Lewis (14 July 1804 – 15 August 1876) was an Orientalist English painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes and often worked in exquisitely detailed watercolour. He was the son of Frederick Christian Lewis (1779–1856), engraver and landscape-painter.
Lewis lived in Spain between 1832 and 1834. He lived in Cairo between 1841 and 1850, where he made numerous sketches that he turned into paintings even after his return to England in 1851. He lived in Walton-on-Thames until his death. Lewis became an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1859 and a member (an RA) in 1865.
After being largely forgotten for decades, he became extremely fashionable, and expensive, from the 1970s and good works now fetch prices into the millions of dollars or pounds at auction.
A Turkish Araba Drawn by Two White Oxen, Constantinople John Frederick Lewis, 1804-1876, British 1841