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Lot Essay
This large watercolour, unfinished, but containing some extremely fine passages, can be dated to circa 1840. In that year, Lewis left for the East, where according to one visitor he was to lead 'a lazy, hazy, tobaccofied existence', which nevertheless engendered some of his most brilliant work.
Lewis conducted his first European tour in 1827, but his first prolonged stay abroad came in 1832, when he spent two years in Spain. His output there was prolific, and the sketches he made sustained his painted oeuvre, following his return to England, via Paris, in 1835. In 1838, he returned to France, and wintered near Naples, producing two major watercolours of the same subject - Easter Day at Rome - Pilgrims and peasants of the Neapolitan States awaiting the benediction of the Pope at St. Peter's, - in 1840. One watercolour measuring 20 x 26 in., and now in the Northampton Art Gallery, was exhibited in Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the 19th Century, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, 1996, no. 27. The other larger composition, was illustrated in the catalogue, figure 27, and is in the Sunderland Art Gallery, Tyne and Wear.
As with so many of Lewis's watercolours of this period, Easter Day is a complicated figure composition, which enabled the artist to detail a wide range of costume and facial types unfamiliar to the British public. The watercolour is important in dating the present work, as not only are the costumes comparable, but the youth in the centre of this sheet also appears asleep at the base of the column in the watercolour of Rome. Although stylistically Lewis's work differs little throughout the decade of the 1830s, in which he earned the soubriquet 'Spanish' Lewis, it is thought that this sheet dates from the later part of this stage of the artist's career.
According to the vendor, it is reputed that Lewis gave this watercolour to her husband's forebears, who lived at The Priory, Aylesford. Letters from Lewis in her possesion, though not relating to this watercolour, support this link. The title is that which it has traditionally borne.
Previous comparable subjects sold at Christie's from the artist's studio include A Vineyard, 5 July 1855, lot 100, and In a Vineyard, sold on 5 May 1877, lot 303.
Lewis conducted his first European tour in 1827, but his first prolonged stay abroad came in 1832, when he spent two years in Spain. His output there was prolific, and the sketches he made sustained his painted oeuvre, following his return to England, via Paris, in 1835. In 1838, he returned to France, and wintered near Naples, producing two major watercolours of the same subject - Easter Day at Rome - Pilgrims and peasants of the Neapolitan States awaiting the benediction of the Pope at St. Peter's, - in 1840. One watercolour measuring 20 x 26 in., and now in the Northampton Art Gallery, was exhibited in Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the 19th Century, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, 1996, no. 27. The other larger composition, was illustrated in the catalogue, figure 27, and is in the Sunderland Art Gallery, Tyne and Wear.
As with so many of Lewis's watercolours of this period, Easter Day is a complicated figure composition, which enabled the artist to detail a wide range of costume and facial types unfamiliar to the British public. The watercolour is important in dating the present work, as not only are the costumes comparable, but the youth in the centre of this sheet also appears asleep at the base of the column in the watercolour of Rome. Although stylistically Lewis's work differs little throughout the decade of the 1830s, in which he earned the soubriquet 'Spanish' Lewis, it is thought that this sheet dates from the later part of this stage of the artist's career.
According to the vendor, it is reputed that Lewis gave this watercolour to her husband's forebears, who lived at The Priory, Aylesford. Letters from Lewis in her possesion, though not relating to this watercolour, support this link. The title is that which it has traditionally borne.
Previous comparable subjects sold at Christie's from the artist's studio include A Vineyard, 5 July 1855, lot 100, and In a Vineyard, sold on 5 May 1877, lot 303.