Robert Murdoch Wright Bedouin Encampment near Cairo, Egypt

An original 1900 watercolour painting, Robert Murdoch Wright, Bedouin Encampment near Cairo, Egypt.

An impressive large Orientalist watercolour depicting a view in Egypt by Robert Murdoch Wright (1858–1926).

In watercolour with bodycolour on O.W. Paper and Arts Co Ltd board.

This is one of four Egypt subjects by the artist that we have for sale.

Little biographical information is recorded about Wright, but he appears to have been born in Kensington and studied in Paris and at Antwerp Academy in the 1880s alongside the artist Dudley Hardy ROI RBA (1867–1922). In the 1910s he is based in Oxford, with a studio on Gloucester Lane. He is also known to have had a studio at Cheyne Walk in London and to have exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Wright is best known for his depictions of Middle Eastern landscapes, working in an Orientalist style that was popular in Europe throughout the 19th century. In Britain this originated in the work of artists such as David Roberts (1796– 1864) and William James Müller (1812–1845) in the 1830s. In the middle of the century John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876) was a prolific and hugely popular painter of realistic Middle Eastern scenes, playing a major part in creating the vogue for 'Oriental' subjects in Imperial Britain, and influencing the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). Lewis also developed a technique for applying colour with a minute touch on a white ground to produce a glowing jewel-like effect.

The work of Robert Murdoch Wright in the latter part of the century draws on these examples. Like that of the earlier Orientalists, his work presents a romanticised view of 'exotic' local life and landscapes: his tranquil desert scenes are often imbued with the warm, soft light of evening and show figures at rest. On the back of one of the paintings Wright knowingly—and tellingly—defines the Bedouin encampment as 'picturesque', the inescapable filter through which 19th-century Western artists viewed the East.