Heliopolis, - As it is

1878 · Watercolour · 37.3 × 26.5 cm

May one see it?

Not receiving at present

Victoria and Albert Museum

London, United Kingdom

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 13 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

Simpson was not usually critical of his fellow Britons; ultimately they employed him to illustrate their Empire and world events. However, he was capable of seeing and recording poor behaviour by the ever-increasing hordes of British tourists. Here they are shown galloping on their donkeys, oblivious of the Obelisk of Senusert at Al-Matariyyah (Heliopolis). What makes this worse is that the Egyptian hoteliers specifically requested that the often beefy visitors should not `gallop the donkeys’ who were not designed for it. Alas, the thrill of racing has consumed the thoughtless riders, as they rush past the antiquities they had ostensibly come to see.

Read on

Simpson was a lithographer and prolific watercolour painter, who eventually became what would now be called a war-correspondent. He was sent by Colnaghi's, the print publishers, to cover the Crimean War, 1854-5, providing drawings for lithographs published in The Seat of War in the East, 1855-6. From 1866 he was employed by the Illustrated London News as their `Special Artist' to report on and illustrate many of the wars and grand ceremonial occasions of the British Empire and elsewhere. Simpson’s vigorous sketches were swiftly transformed into wood-engravings, giving the ever expanding pool of news-hungry readers the illustrations they craved. He lived long enough to see photography start to replace his form of reportage in magazines.

Victoria and Albert Museum