John Frederick Lewis, R.A.

Possibly James Dyson Perrins (1823-1887, possibly acquired from the artist)
Charles William Dyson Perrins (1864-1958, by descent from the above, his father. Charles William Dyson Perrins gave or bequeathed many valuable objects to national institutions, and the remainder, including Lewis’s two panels and four other oils and watercolours, were sold in a series of sales after his death in 1958)
Sale: Sotheby’s, London, 22 April 1959, lot 97
Thomas Agnew & Sons, London (acquired at the above sale)
Purchased from the above by the father of the present owner on 10 August 1966; thence by descent

London, Royal Academy, 1874, no. 353
Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1966, no. 50
Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery, John Frederick Lewis R.A., 1971, no. 86
London, Tate Britain, The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting, 2008, with tour to Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, illustrated in the catalogue
Manchester, University of Manchester, The Whitworth Art Gallery (L.2006.2), on loan since 2006

The Times, 26 May 1874, p. 6
Athenaeum, 30 May 1874, p. 740
Art Journal, 1874, p. 200
The Burlington Magazine, vol. civ, 1962, p. 404, fig. 43, illustrated
John Michael Hardwicke Lewis, John Frederick Lewis R.A. 1805-1876, Leigh-on-Sea, 1978,  p. 98, no. 613
Mary Roberts, Intimate Outsiders: The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature, Durham, 2007, pp. 49 & 164, no. 22
Emily M. Weeks, Cultures Crossed John Frederick Lewis and the Art of Orientalism, London and New Haven, 2014, pp. 108-110, 112, 123 et passim, figs. 81 & 85, illustrated

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd., London, SW1Y 6BU UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The artist's panel is providing a sound and stable structural support and has a wooden backboard which was not removed for the purpose of this examination. Paint surface The paint surface has a rather discoloured and uneven varnish layer and should respond very well to cleaning and revarnishing. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows minimal retouchings including a very thin line on the contours of the central standing figure's red robes. Ultra-violet light also confirms how well the painting should respond to cleaning. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition with the potential to be considerably improved should the painting be cleaned and revarnished.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

When this painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874, the critic of the well-regarded periodical, the Athenaeum, found the outdoor encounter between oriental males a welcome relief from its companion, Indoor Gossip (RA, 1874, no. 352; The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester), which he regarded as yet another of Lewis’s claustrophobic scenes of ‘women chattering, with the usual harem accompaniments’. ‘It is’, he wrote, ‘something like a novelty to have nothing to do with the plump women of that rather tiresome harem, the glitter of the everlasting sunlight dispersed by trellis shadows, and lying on the brocades, silks, satins, pavements, and what not of Mr Lewis’s Oriental paradises’. By 1874, late in Lewis’s career, the critics were beginning to tire of the harem interiors that they had lauded in the previous two decades, though The Times still admired Lewis’s ‘wonderful handiwork’ and considered his glowing colours to ‘hang among the canvases about them like bouquets’.

Oriental urban men engaged in conversation, both indoors and out, had been the subject of earlier paintings by Lewis, notably The Door of a Café in Cairo (his RA Diploma Work exhibited in 1866, no. 113), but this seems to have been the first time that he shows male and female gendered spaces as a deliberately contrasted pair. While his women are pampered, sequestered, enclosed, his men are relaxed, unrestricted and involved in debate, apparently reflecting the perceived conventions of Eastern society. Lewis’s audience might also have recognised parallels in the segregation of spheres within their own society: between the secure domesticity of ‘hearth and home’, in which the ideal woman was located, and the outside world where men could trade and conduct transactions that might bring hardship and danger. Yet, on further examination, the distinctions in Lewis’s pair of paintings are not quite so clear-cut, and each contains a characteristically enigmatic twist. Light from outside illuminates the confined space of the two women, and to their left is part of an open doorway, through which is glimpsed another female, eavesdropping on their private conversation, but also hinting at the world beyond. Conversely, nearly two-thirds of the male picture is occupied by an interior space, bathed not in light but in shadow, in which stands the dominant figure clothed in rich red and smoking his chibouk (long fruit-wood pipe); although the outside world is glimpsed top left, the figure standing at the threshold between out and in, faces inward, not out. In the depths of the dimly-lit interior is a grilled window (top right) though since it too is situated in a dark interior, it is difficult to discern just who or what is behind it.

We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for preparing this catalogue note.