The Convent, Mount Sinai

The fine pencil lines, delicate shading and pale tonalities of this watercolour admirably convey the bright sunlight of the region and the stark mountainous terrain in which the monastery is situated. Beavis visited it in 1875, as he passed through Sinai on his way from Egypt to Palestine. Travellers on this journey usually stopped at the monastery, founded in the fourth century AD as a sanctuary around the site of the Burning Bush, described in the Bible in Exodus: 3

As well as the drawings and watercolours made on and immediately after this trip, Beavis exhibited a few Orientalist paintings during the late 1870s, but is better known for his landscapes, atmospheric coastal views, and scenes of rustic life.