Oil paint on mahogany
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/john-frederick-lewis-350" aria-label="More by John Frederick Lewis" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">John Frederick Lewis</a>
Edfu Upper Egypt
Purchased 1894
adults
animals: mammals
architecture
camel
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
desert
dress: nations/regions
Edfu
Egypt
Egypt
Egyptian
ethnicity
features
furnishings
landscape
man
Middle Eastern
minaret
nationality
objects
people
places
residential
rug
society
tent
townscape, distant
townscapes / man-made features
<p>This scene shows the Egyptian Temple of Horus (237–57 BCE), near the city of Edfu. It was painted in Lewis’s studio in London. He based the work on drawings he made while living in Cairo in the 1840s, during a period of rapid modernisation in Egypt. New steamboats and railways opened up the region to foreign artists, but they often left contemporary life out of their pictures to appeal to European fantasies of the Middle East. Here Lewis shows the ancient temple and nearby village awash with sand. Lewis counterpoints the temple’s carved figures with Bedouin men breaking their journey.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint mahogany
10 December 2001 – 27 April 2003
2003-04-27
10 December 2001 – 27 April 2003
2003-04-27
2001-12-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-12-10
British Artists and the Near East
Collection based display
12 May 2006 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
12 May 2007
2007-05-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-05-12
Orientalism
Collection based display
4 February 2008 – 31 May 2009
2009-05-31
7 February 2008 – 28 April 2008
2008-04-28
2008-02-07
Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, USA)
http://ycba.yale.edu/index.asp
4 June 2008 – 31 August 2008
2008-08-31
2008-06-04
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
26 September 2008 – 11 January 2009
2009-01-11
2008-09-26
Pera Museum (Istanbul, Turkey)
18 February 2009 – 30 April 2009
2009-04-30
2009-02-18
Sharjah Art Museum (Sharjah, UAE)
2008-02-04
The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting
Loan-out
7 February 2008 – 30 April 2009
2009-04-30
7 February 2008 – 28 April 2008
2008-04-28
2008-02-07
Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, USA)
http://ycba.yale.edu/index.asp
4 June 2008 – 31 August 2008
2008-08-31
2008-06-04
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
26 September 2008 – 4 January 2009
2009-01-04
2008-09-26
Pera Museum (Istanbul, Turkey)
18 February 2009 – 30 April 2009
2009-04-30
2009-02-18
Sharjah Art Museum (Sharjah, UAE)
2008-02-07
British Orientalist Painting
Exhibition
7 August 2014 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
7 August 2014
2014-08-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-08-07
Gallery 9
Collection based display
1 February 2019 – 2 June 2019
2019-06-02
1 February 2019 – 2 June 2019
2019-06-02
2019-02-01
Fondation de l’Hermitage (Lausanne, Switzerland)
http://www.fondation-hermitage.ch
2019-02-01
British painting during the Victorian era
Loan-out
Edfu, Upper Egypt
support: 298 × 775 mm
frame: 564 × 1044 × 100 mm
Purchased 1894
<p>The ancient ruins at Edfu are situated between Luxor and Aswan, in Egypt. It was unusual for Lewis to focus on the topography of Egypt, although the architecture remains subservient to the Bedouin encampment in the foreground.  The picture was painted from <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawings</span></a> which Lewis had made while living in Cairo during the 1840s. 

</p><p>The Middle East and North Africa attracted a large number of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/v/victorian" title="Glossary definition for 'Victorian'"><span>Victorian</span></a> artists, in search of exotic subjects. In 1844 the novelist W.M.Thackeray (1811-63) wrote, 'There is a fortune to be made for painters in Cairo, and materials for a whole Academy of them' (quoted in Lambourne, p.102). Lewis moved to Cairo in 1841 and lived there for nine years. He wore Islamic dress and lived in extreme luxury in the Arab quarter. During this period he travelled all over the country and, of all the English artists who painted in the Middle East, he was the most in tune with Egyptian life.  At first he painted only in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a>, and recorded the sun-bleached <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a> to great effect. The writer and critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) particularly admired his skill in painting camels: 

</p><p></p><blockquote>If the reader will examinewith a good lens, the eyes of the camelshe will find there is as much painting beneath their drooping fringes as would, with most painters, be thought enough for the whole head. (Quoted in Lambourne, pp.103-5.)

<p></p></blockquote>However, Ruskin was concerned that Lewis's colours would fade with the passage of time and urged him to change <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/medium" title="Glossary definition for 'Medium'"><span>medium</span></a>.  From 1856 onward, therefore, Lewis resumed <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> in oils, although his technique and handling remained those of a watercolourist.

<p>In this picture, painted once he was back in England, Lewis typically focuses on contemporary figures and their animals, rather than on the ancient ruins at Edfu. An Arab chief reclines on the ground, while his two camels, laden with pack-saddles, are resting.  Just visible behind the animals is a white <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> tent, pitched between the walls of Edfu and its temple. The scene is set against a vast panorama: the distant plain dotted with palm trees, and beyond it the river Nile, bordered by a chain of hills on the horizon. The temple of Edfu is clearly visible on the left with its well-preserved inscriptions, but a preparatory drawing reveals that Lewis moved the minaret to the right in order to accommodate the bedouin tent.  His aim was evidently to include elements of the ancient (the temple), the medieval (the mosque) and the modern (the tent). 

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b>Lionel Lambourne, <i>Victorian Painting</i>, London 1999, pp.102-5.<br/>Mary Anne Stevens (ed.), <i>The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse - European Painters in North Africa and the Near East</i>, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1984, pp.204, no.91, reproduced p.204.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>December 2000</p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>This scene shows the Egyptian Temple of Horus (237–57 BCE), near the city of Edfu. It was painted in Lewis’s studio in London. He based the work on drawings he made while living in Cairo in the 1840s, during a period of rapid modernisation in Egypt. New steamboats and railways opened up the region to foreign artists, but they often left contemporary life out of their pictures to appeal to European fantasies of the Middle East. Here Lewis shows the ancient temple and nearby village awash with sand. Lewis counterpoints the temple’s carved figures with Bedouin men breaking their journey.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2020-10-14T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
adults animals: mammals architecture camel cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents desert dress: nations/regions Edfu Egypt Egypt Egyptian ethnicity features furnishings landscape man Middle Eastern minaret nationality objects people places residential rug society tent townscape, distant townscapes / man-made features