1850
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
The Hhareem, Cairo is a 1850 watercolor by John Frederick Lewis, a Impressionism work, depicting Orientalist Painting, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
John Frederick Lewis painted *The Hhareem, Cairo* around 1850. It’s a watercolour in the Realist style, full of careful details. Lewis spent ten years living in Cairo. He rented the house you see here. Critics loved his work when he showed it in 1850. The painting even changed after the first show—more figures appeared on the right. Look up Lewis, John Frederick (RA POWCS) next.
This watercolour depicts the interior of the women's quarters in a Mamluk house in Cairo, showing a Turkish Bey, his wives, his son, a domesticated gazelle, servants, and the wife of a slave dealer. The right margin appears to have been trimmed, leaving only a fragment of the drapery belonging to a newly introduced slave and part of an eunuch's hand. It is a reduced version of Lewis's 1849 painting *The Hhareem*, now held by Nippon Life Insurance Company in Osaka. The work was acquired by the museum in 1949, initially believed to be the original, before research confirmed its status as a…
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…
See the richer artist page
