John Frederick Lewis
Detailed, respectful Orientalist realism
John Frederick Lewis 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 medium. He lived for several years in a traditional mansion in Cairo, and after his return to England in 1851 he specialized in highly detailed works showing both realistic genre scenes of Middle Eastern life and more idealized scenes in upper class Egyptian interiors with little apparent Western influence. His very careful and loving representation of Islamic architecture, furnishings, screens, and costumes set new standards of realism, which influenced other artists, including the leading French Orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme in his later works. Unlike many other Orientalist painters who took a salacious interest in the women of the Middle East, he "never painted a nude", and his wife modelled for several of his harem scenes. These, with the rare examples by the classicist painter Lord Leighton, imagine "the harem as a place of almost English domesticity, ... [where]... women's fully clothed respectability suggests a moral healthiness to go with their natural good looks".
Relationship Network
Master student
- John Richard Coke Smyth Student
Influenced
Artworks by this artist
- On the Banks of the Nile, Upper Egypt 1876
- Figures and Animals in a Vineyard 1829
- A Lady Receiving Visitors (The Reception) 1873
- Spanish Battle Scene; The Proclamation of Don Carlos
- Arab School 1841-51
- A Bedouin 1841-1851
- Sketches and Drawings of the Alhambra. London 1835
- Two Camels ca. 1843
- Fruitsellers on a Venetian Canal
- Lilium Auratum 1871
- Study of a Lioness ca. 1824
- Head of a Young Woman between 1838 and 1840
- Halt In The Desert
- A Head Keeper, Windsor Castle 1826
- Highland Hospitality 1832
- Sheikh el Belled; Kom Ombo 1850
- Venice The Grand Canal and Rialto 1838
- Game Keeper And Boy Ferreting A Rabbit
- A Street Scene in Granada on the Day of the Bullfight 1833
- Study of a Lion and Study of a Lioness’ Head 1820