1844
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Study for Mehmet Ali Pasha is a 1844 by John Frederick Lewis, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A man in a red turban and embroidered coat sits on a low divan, one hand resting on a sword. The room is dim, with rich fabrics and patterned tiles behind him. Lewis lived in Cairo for ten years, sketching real people in their homes. This drawing was a quick study for a bigger watercolor—you can see the loose, confident lines he used to get the folds of cloth right. If you like this, look up *sfumato*—the way Lewis softens edges to make light feel warm and real.
This drawing was a study for a larger watercolor (now at the Victoria and Albert Museum) of Mehmet Ali Pasha, considered by many as the "Father of Modern Egypt." While European travel to the Middle East burgeoned during the mid 19th century, John Frederick Lewis was more intrepid than most, living and painting in Cairo for a decade. Upon his return to England in 1851, he astonished London audiences with more than 600 watercolors that conjured an exotic world of sumptuous colors and textures articulated in painstaking detail.
Lord Elphinstone, governor of Madras, described this drawing in an 1845 letter as "the best, and in fact, the only good likeness [of Mehmet Ali Pasha] I have seen, and I saw it within a quarter of an hour of leaving the original."
Read the full account in the museum source.
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876) was an English Orientalist painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes in detailed watercolour or oils, very often repeating the same composition in a version in each…
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