Yale Center for British Art

Creator:

John Frederick Lewis, 1804–1876, British

Title:

A Lady Receiving Visitors (The Reception)

Date:

1873

Materials & Techniques:

Oil on panel

Dimensions:

25 × 30 inches (63.5 × 76.2 cm)

Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Signed and dated in grey paint, lower right: "J.F. Lewis R.A. | 1873"

Credit Line:

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Copyright Status:

Public Domain

Accession Number:

B1981.25.417

Classification:

Paintings

Collection:

Paintings and Sculpture

Subject Terms:

Associated Places:

Egypt | Urban | Cairo

Currently On View:

Not on view

Exhibition History:

Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)

Lure of the East - British Orientalist Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-02-07 - 2008-04-28)

The Orientalists - Delacroix to Matisse - The Allure of North Africa and the Near East (National Gallery of Art, 1984-07-10 - 1984-10-28)

Publications:

Gerald M. Ackerman, Les orientalistes de l'école britannique, vol. 9, ACR Edition Internationale, Corbevoie, Paris, 1991, p. 189, N7429 A2514 1991

Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionary of artists, Bénézit , Grund, Paris, FR, 2006, p. 956, N40 .B4413 2006

Susan P. Casteras, The substance or the shadow : images of Victorian womanhood, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1982, pp. 43, 85, no. 55, pl. 49, N7630 C27 + (YCBA)

Julie F. Codell, Victorian Artists' autograph replicas : auras, aesthetics, patronage and the art market, Taylor & Francis, Ltd, New York, p. 285, ND467 .V515 2020 (YCBA)

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 146-147, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)

Alev Lytle Croutier, Harem, the world behind the veil , Abbeville Press, New York, NY, 1989, p. 27, HQ1170 C84 1989

Miles Danby, Moorish Style, Phaidon, London, 1995, p. 66, NK1270 D25 1995 OVERSIZE

Joan DelPlato, From slave market to paradise, The harem pictures of John Frederick Lewis and their traditions , University Microfilms International, Los Angeles, CA, 1987, pp. 278-281, NJ18 L5857 D45 1987A

Joan DelPlato, Multiple wives, multiple pleasures, representing the harem, 1800-1875 , Associated University Presses, Inc., Madison, NJ, 2002, pp. 205, 215-216, 231, 257n.46, fig. 6.2, NX650.H37 D45 2002 OVERSIZE

Fine Arts, The Graphic, London, May 23, 1874, p. 502, Online at 19th century British Libray Newspapers Article retrieved from 19th Century British Library Newspapers

Roswitha Gost, Der Harem, Koln, 1993, p. 159, N8217 H37 G67 1993

Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, A complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904 , , Henry Graves & Co., London, 1905 - 1906, vol. 5, p 55, 1874, no. 354, N5054 G73 (YCBA)

Zeynep Inankur, The Poetics and politics of place, Ottoman Istanbul and British Orientalism , Pera Museum, distributed by University of Washington Press, Istanbul Seattle, WA, 2011, pp. 248-49, fig. 17.4, ND1460 E95 P647 2011 + (YCBA)

International Saleroom, Connoisseur, vol. 165, June 1967, p. 133, no. 6, N1 C75 OVERSIZE

Michael Lewis, John Frederick Lewis, R.A., 1805-1876, F. Lewis, Publishers, Limited, Leigh-on-Sea, 1978, p. 39-40, fig. 64, NJ18 L5857 L48 OVERSIZE

Michael Lewis, The Lewis family, art and travel, five generations of artists , Unwin Brothers, London, 1933, pp. 65-66, NJ18 L58571 L48 1993

Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism, race, femininity, and representation , Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), London ; New York, NY, 1996, p. 111, pl. 16, NX650 E85 L48 1996

Sarah Macready, Influences in Victorian art and architecture, Society of Antiquaries of London, London, 1985, p. 133, N6465 V5 I54

H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford dictionary of national biography, in association with the British Academy : from the earliest times to the year 2000 , vol. 59, Oxford University Press, Oxford ; New York, 2004, p. 629, DA28 .D5 2004

F.T. Palgrave, Royal Academy Exhibition, (second notice) , Academy, vol. 5, Academy Publishing Co., London, May 16, 1874, p. 555, Available online at British Periodicals I

Claude Phillips, John Frederick Lewis, R.A., Portfolio, 23, Seeley, London, January 1892, p. 96, Available online at British Periodicals II

Sotheby's, Sotheby's sale catalogue : Catalogue of Fine Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Drawings and Paintings : 15 March 1967, Sotheby's, London, March 15, 1967, p. 48, lot. 167, Auction Catalogues (YCBA)

John Sweetman, The Oriental Obsession, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge : New York, NY, 1988, pp. 136, 138, 141, fig. 76, N6764 S94 1988

The lure of the east : British Orientalist painting: wall labels, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. [48], V 2577 (YCBA) V 2577

The lure of the East, British orientalist painting, 1830-1925 , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 12, 16, V 1879 (YCBA)

The Matthews Picture Sale, The Times (London), , , Monday, June 8, 1891, p. 12, Available online : Times Digital Archive Also available on Microfilm : An T482 (SML)

The Royal Academy Exhibition, Illustrated London News, London, May 9, 1874, p. 446, Available online: Illus. London News Hist. Archive

The Royal Academy, Athenaeum, no. 2477, London, May 2, 1874, p. 600, Available online at British Periodicals I

The Royal Academy, Art Journal, London, July 1874, p. 200, Available online at British Periodicals I

The Royal Academy, Athenaeum, issue no. 2431, J. Frances, London, May 30, 1874, p. 740, Available online in British Periodicals II DB Also available in hardcopy A88 At521 + OVERSIZE (SML)

Deborah A. Thomas, Thackeray and Slavery, Ohio University Press, Athens, 1993, pp. 46, 48, fig. 5, PR5642 S56 T48 1993

Nicholas Tromans, The lure of the East, British Orientalist painting , Tate Publishing, London, 2008, pp. 23, 25-28, 30-32, 38-39, 82, 131, 133-134, 147-149, 216, fig. 15,25,128, N7429 .L87 2008 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Emily M. Weeks, Art and the British Empire, Manchester University Press, Manchester ; New York, NY, 2007, xvi, pp. 237-243, 245, 247-251, XVIII, 86, N6766 .A77 2007

Emily M. Weeks, Cultures crossed : John Frederick Lewis and the art of orientalism, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven, 2014, pp. 4,8,107-27, 129, 143, 203 [n. 4n-11], 204 [ns 12, 13, 16,17, 19], 205-06 [ns 22, 25, 26,27, 35, 37, 40], 208 [ns. 48, 51, 52]. 209 [ns. 55, 56]. 211 [n 78], color detail and figs. 86-90, NJ18.L5857 W437 2014 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Emily M. Weeks, New Discoveries : Oil and Water, ( Re ) Discovering John Frederick Lewis ( 1804 - 76 ) , Nineteenth - Century Art Worldwide : [ electronic resource ] : a journal of nineteenth - century visual culture, Vol. 12, Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art, College Park, MD, Autumn 2013, No page number given, fig. 1, http://19thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/autumn13/new-discoveries-re-discovering-john-frederick-lewis-1804-76

Emily M. Weeks, The "reality effect", The Orientalist paintings of John Frederick Lewis (1805-1876) , University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI, 2005, pp. 217-238, fig. 5.1, NJ18.L5857 W44 2005A

Caroline Williams, John Frederick Lewis, "Reflections of Reality" , Muqarnas, vol. 18, Brill, 2001, pp. 228, 229, fig. 2, V 2575 (YCBA)

Caroline Williams, John Frederick Lewis, "Reflections of Reality" , Muqarnas, vol. 18, Brill, 2001, pp. 228, 229, fig. 2, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1523309

Ruth Bernard Yeazell, Harems of the mind, passages of western art and literature , Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2000, pp. 225, 228-230, 302n.39, NX650.H37 Y43 2000

Gallery Label:

The virtuoso painter and watercolorist John Frederick Lewis traveled extensively in Spain and Morocco in the early 1830s and lived between 1841 and 1851 in the Egyptian city of Cairo. Fascinated with Islamic art and culture, Lewis created refined, poetic, and ambiguous images of Egyptian life that rejected popular orientalist stereotypes. Painted over twenty years after his return to England, A Lady Receiving Visitors (The Reception) depicts the mandarah, or the first-floor reception room in an Egyptian house. Although Lewis’s meticulously detailed portrayal of the space implies documentary accuracy, women were not permitted to enter the mandarah. Lewis did not provide an interpretation of the painting, but his depiction of women at ease in a masculine space may be intended to refute contemporary British critiques of the treatment of Muslim women in Egypt and the Middle East, and subversively comment on the domestic restrictions imposed on their British counterparts. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016

Link:

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:901