.
After 1877 Wallis ceased to exhibit oil paintings at the Royal Academy. He was elected a member of the Old Water-Colour Society (Society of Painters in Water Colours) in 1878. This is one of the first watercolours he exhibited there and the first to introduce “Orientalist” elements into his work. A fascination with the Middle East would dominate his later years and Wallis became one of the most prominent British Orientalist painters of the late 19th century. Because Wallis’s first journey to Egypt did not take place until 1885, however, the Orientalist elements in this work were obviously created by a fertile Western imagination and not done from life!
F. G. Stephens, the critic of The Athenaeum, warmly appreciated the colouring in this work:
In a Sacristy –The Carpet Merchant (107) is a gorgeous piece of colour; the Oriental seller of carpets and his slave bargain with two priests just come in from high mass in the neighbouring chapel, while a third washes his hands at a brazen lavatory, attached, as usual, to the wall. Every one of these figures is a rich study of powerful colour, and the group is posed against a carved wood panelling, madder-brown predominating, admirably painted. The propriety of expression on the faces and the lively concern shown in the transaction are notably represented. [578]
The Illustrated London News also praised the work: “The fourth Associate is Henry Wallis, to whom this compliment ought to have been paid years ago…The Arab carpet merchant (107) showing his wares to two priests who are clad in gorgeous vestments…are all charming pictures, and prove how wisely the council acted in electing their author” (418). The Graphic critic Tom Taylor also commented on the rich colouring of this piece: “Two of Mr. Wallis’s drawings, ‘A Flemish Interior’ and ‘The Carpet Merchant,’ are rather reminiscences of Flemish genre-painters and Venetian colourists than really original works” (446).
Bibliography
“Fine Arts. The Society of Painters in Water Colours,” The Illustrated London News 72 (May 4, 1878): 418.
Taylor, Tom. “Society of Painters in Water Colours,” The Graphic XVII (May 4, 1878): 446.
Lessens, Ronald and Dennis T. Lanigan. Henry Wallis. From Pre-Raphaelite Painter to Collector/Connoisseur. Woodbridge: ACC Art Books, 2019, cat. 120, 144-45.
Stephens, Frederic George. “The Society of Painters in Water Colours.” The Athenaeum No. 2636 (May 4, 1878): 577-79.
Last modified 17 October 2022