John Frederick LewisAngleterre, 1805–1876An Oriental Interior
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Nous l’ignorons : le musée garde le silence
Victoria and Albert Museum
Londres, Royaume-Uni
Le propriétaire est connu. Si elle est exposée aujourd’hui, le musée ne le dit pas, et l’on ne nous a pas appris à deviner.
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- Source
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About the painting
At first sight, this painting is an exotic and rather subtle version of what must have been a fairly common Victorian domestic drama. In a Turkish interior, a rich Persian is upbraiding his shifty-looking servants, having been presented with alarmingly high household bills. For some unexplained reason, Lewis does not indicate that it is also a portrait of Prince Hulugu Mirza, the cousin of the reigning Shah of Persia.
Read on
Lewis and the painter David Wilkie were both in Constantinople in 1840, and both had visited and produced several portraits of the Prince, his servants and his new Circassian slave. Hulugu was in exile, as his father had tried unsuccessfully to seize the throne. According to David Wilkie the Prince was 'living at Constantinople on a pension allowed him by the Turkish Government. Having been active in political intrigue, his return to his native country would be unwelcome to the existing power, and dangerous to himself.' Presumably the pension was not big enough to pay all the bills. Wilkie had wanted to use the noble head of the Prince as a model for a figure of Christ, while Lewis (perhaps aware of Wilkie's intention) slyly portrays the Prince as an all-too-human being.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Notice
- Numéro d’inventaire
- 1005-1886
What it shows
Au catalogue
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum: the museum's own open data · obtenue il y a 7 jours
- Image : Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
