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William James MullerTribesmen beside ruins at Pinara, Lycia, c. 18441844
1844
$10,231.38
£7,500
€8,814.79
CA$14,328.68
A$15,752.76
CHF 8,142.85
MX$188,491.81
NOK 102,801.58
SEK 96,379.36
DKK 65,833.79
About the Item
William James Müller
Tribesmen beside ruins at Pinara, Lycia, c. 1844
Oil on canvas
Signed indistinctly to the stretcher frame verso, ‘Wm Müller’
35.5 x 55.7 cm.; (within frame) 46.7 x 67 cm.
Unsigned
Provenance:
Private collection, United Kingdom;
With Frost & Reed, 25 April 1968, no. CR2119;
Dr Kenneth Carl Pfeiffer Smith (1910-1999), Bristol;
Sotheby’s, Torquay, 14 October 1981, lot 273;
Sotheby’s, Billinghurst, 26 January 1999, lot 119;
Gorringe’s, 11 September 2008, lot 1528;
Private collection, United Kingdom.
Archival:
Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art (box no. 031407)
This fluid oil sketch belongs to some of Müller’s finest works, produced during his expedition to Lycia, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) during the winter of 1843-44. Demonstrating his shift towards a looser, more mature style of Orientalist painting, the present work characterises a romantic palette of contrasting and complimentary hues in rich ochres, reds and blues. Particularly experimental in style, the oil study was likely executed in no more than an hour, within Müller’s encampment between meals and rest ‒ as was typical of his oil sketches painted in the field. Similar views of the Taurus range in watercolour were made in under twenty minutes. Having briefly outlined his subject in chalk or pen and ink, and arranged his palette, Müller would often take to his guitar, playing a select few dissonant notes as though tuning himself to the scene, before rapidly working an impression onto the canvas in one effort, without hesitation or pause.
Showing members of the entourage before the snow-capped range of Mount Cragus beyond, a guide gestures to the sky, while others rest on the ground, and pack donkeys take pause behind them. The brown form entering the composition from the bottom left may be that of a rifle: indeed, Müller was gifted one to hunt with by the father of his pupil, Harry John Johnson, RA (1826-1884). The work is stylistically comparable to Slave Market (Brighton and Hove Museum, FA000013), and Arabs Playing Chess (Bristol Museum, K969), painted in Egypt in 1843.
Significantly, the distinctive rectangular stone arch depicted here appears in another watercolour by Müller entitled Pinara, Lycia – The City Ruins, Mount Cragus in The Distance, which surveys the same site from a higher viewpoint [1]. A closely related sketch, Dawn at Pinara, Lycia, features different ruins in the foreground, although with similar snowcapped peaks in the distance [2]. A more developed version of that composition is held by the British Museum (BM, 1878,1228.154). Another notable work from the expedition, Rock Tombs, Tlos, Lycia: The Citadel from the South-East, a large oil painting with a similar mountainous backdrop, was once part of the Simon Sainsbury collection, having been acquired by him from Christopher Gibbs [3].
Having been invited by the archaeologist and explorer Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860) to join him on his fourth expedition to Lycia, Müller left England on 12 September 1843, accompanied by Johnson. The party arrived in Xanthus on 1 November and, after spending the next fortnight there, travelled onwards to the ruins of Pinara at the foot of Mount Cragus. Johnson was to later recall: ‘Here for the next nine days Müller was indefatigably occupied in exploring and sketching all that time permitted; and whoever has seen the marvellous results of his nine days’ work, achieved amidst the incessant anxieties and worries of the journey, in a wild country, and upon an exposed hill-top, will readily agree in calling his energy something wonderful’ (Solly, p. 209). On their third night at Pinara, the encampment was wrecked by a ‘hurricane of rain and lightning’, as the group took shelter in the ruined tombs. It is perhaps this incident to which the present work alludes – with the central tribesman indicating an incoming tempest [4].
Müller arrived back in London from his travels on 5 May 1844, with ‘one or two hundred drawings’ which he spent the subsequent years working up (Solly, p.200). Many were exhibited in London shortly after his return, and after his death in 1845, a major posthumous exhibition of his Lycia pictures was held in Bristol; most were dispersed at his estate sale, held at Christie’s between 1-3 April 1846.
William James Müller (1812-1845):
Born in Bristol to a Prussian father, Müller spent most of his brief 33 years painting the city and its surrounding topography, including Gloucestershire and Wales. Studying between 1827-29/30 under the landscape painter James Baker Pyne, a successful follower of Turner, Müller witnessed the chaos of the 1831 Bristol Riots aged 19 alongside his master, and painted outstanding scenes of the fiery destruction. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1833, and the following year visited France, Switzerland, and Italy. He made a tour of the Middle East in 1838-39, and settled in London following his return. It was about this time that he was introduced to David Cox Senior by their mutual friend, watercolorist George Arthur Fripp, and began teaching him in watercolour.
In 1843, he was employed to complete some of Constable’s pictures for a London dealer. Müller revisited the Middle East between 1843-44, during which he painted the present work. The brief years subsequent to the expedition were spent working on Lycian views, for which he became highly regarded. He died from tuberculosis on 8 September 1845. Despite the abrupt ending to his artistic career, the remaining body of works is testament to Müller’s energy and artistic enthusiasm: ‘I must paint to live ‒ well then I paint one picture for the world & money ‒ also will I paint one for myself. Let that one be for Eternity’ (Greenacre, p.12).
Bibliography and further reading:
Cyril E. Gaunt, The Life and Work of William James Müller of Bristol (Leigh-on-Sea: F. Lewis, 1948)
Francis Greenacre and Sheena Stoddard, W. J. Muller, 1812-1845 (Bristol: Friends of Bristol Art Gallery, 1991)
Nathaniel Neal Solly, Memoir of the Life of William James Müller (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875)
Sotheby’s, London, The Bill Thomson Collection of Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings by William James Muller (1812-1845) (London: Sotheby’s, 25 November 1999)
Notes:
[1] See Sotheby’s, London, 15th November 1999, lot 78
[2] See Sotheby’s, London, 6th July 2016, lot 327
[3] See Christie’s, London, 18 June 2008, ‘Simon Sainsbury: The Creation of an English Arcadia’, lot 366
[4] W. J. Müller, ‘Letter from Xanthus’, Art-Union, February 1844, p.42
- Creator:William James Muller (1812 - 1845, British)
- Creation Year:1844
- Dimensions:Height: 18.39 in (46.7 cm)Width: 26.38 in (67 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Maidenhead, GB
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2820217090982
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