Travel Pick: Art and Archaeology in England
The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting

This show surveys the history of British painters’ representations of the Middle East from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries, notably the great range of artistic responses to the peoples, cities and landscapes of the regions lying just across the Mediterranean from Europe.

The exhibition reveals the wealth of Orientalist painting which followed the arrival of steam travel in the nineteenth century. Art and tourism flourished in places that were now relatively easy to reach by boat, and artists were drawn to visit and paint the areas they explored including Cairo, Jerusalem and Istanbul (Constantinople), often travelling via Spain and Morocco, or through Greece and the Balkans.

William Allan: The Slave Market, Constantinople, 1838, National Gallery of Scotland

Bringing together over 110 pictures and watercolours from collections around the world, The Lure of the East includes major works by celebrated British painters such as Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt, Richard Dadd, Lord Leighton and John Frederick Lewis.

Highlights include Gavin Hamilton’s huge canvas James Dawkins and Robert Wood Discovering the Ruins of Palmyra 1758 (National Gallery of Scotland), the portraits of Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips 1814 (Government Art Collection) and Lawrence of Arabia by Augustus John 1919 (Tate), William Allan’s Slave Market, Constantinople 1838 (National Gallery of Scotland), John Frederick Lewis’s The Seraff – A Doubtful Coin 1869 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery), David Roberts’s panoramic view of the ancient city of Baalbec in Lebanon 1861 (Sharjah Art Museum), Richard Dadd’s Flight out of Egypt 1849/50 (Tate) and John Frederick Lewis’s Hhareem Life, Constantinople 1857 (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne).

After London the exhibition will travel to the Pera Museum, Istanbul (October 2008 – January 2009) and the Sharjah Art Museum (February – April 2009).

A catalogue is available.