Description
Watercolour over pencil, with collector's mark lower right. This dates from the most important sketching tour of M'ller's career, in Lycia in modern day Turkey in the winter of 1843-44. He left England with his pupil Harry John Johnson (1826-1884) on 12th September 1843 and after stopping for supplies at Smyrna met up with the archaeologist Sir Charles Fellowes, who had organised the expedition, at the mouth of the river Xanthus. On 1st November they walked the six miles to Xanthus, the ancient capital of Lycia and they remained in the area for three months. M'ller worked constantly, despite the bad weather, and developed a looser more confident style and worked on a larger scale than he had before.
He returned with `one or two hundred drawings' (N. Neal Solly, Memoir of the Life of William Muller, 1875, p.200, letter from M'ller to J. Satterfield, 12th February 1844) which were widely recognised as the finest achievement of his career. They were shown at a meeting of London's Graphic Society in January 1845 and then not until after his sudden death aged 33, only eighteenth months after his return. They were exhibited at the Bristol Institution, along with other works, before being sold in London. The Bristol Gazette described them thus: `The great characteristic of the sketches is their freedom and spirit ' a bold, comprehensive, almost daring ' and yet most natural ' grasping of the subject'.' (Bristol Gazette, 5th March 1846, p.3). For more on M'ller's Lycian trip, see Greenacre and Stoddart, W.J. M'ller, exhibition catalogue, 1991, p. 142-145.
This is a view of the remains of Xanthus. In the foreground is a typical Lycian house tomb where the stone has been hewn to imitate wooden roof beams. The Roman amphitheatre is behind and probably dates from the 2nd century AD. It is relatively intact, with only the upper rows of the auditorium missing, having been used as construction material for later buildings. On the far right is the top of the Pillar tomb, an unusual funeral monument in Lycia, as it is actually two tombs in one and it is likely to date from the 4th or 3rd centuries B.C.
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
image © Guy Peppiatt Fine Art
Location
Xanthos, Antalya, Turkey
Country
Turkey
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
Buildings & Architecture
