Gabriele Carelli, Lake Timsah, Egypt – late 19th-century watercolour painting

Gabriele Carelli Lake Timsah, Egypt

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View the full Collection: Carelli, Gabriele (1820/21–1900)

An original late 19th-century watercolour painting, Gabriele Carelli, Lake Timsah, Egypt.

A fine miniature watercolour by Gabriele Carelli (1820/21–1900) showing a view across Lake Timsah in Egypt.

Gabriele Carelli is the best-known member of a dynasty of Italian landscape painters. Born in Naples, he travelled extensively across Britain and Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Working for a time in England, his watercolours were purchased by Queen Victoria.

Lake Timsah, also known as Crocodile Lake, is the result of a natural depression in the landscape in the Bitter Lakes region of the Nile delta, midway between Port Said and Suez. In the 19th century this location became of key strategic significance, when in 1869 digging for the Suez Canal caused the lake to fill with waters from the Red Sea. The lake became part of the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea and the Mediterranean were linked for the first time—creating 'the artery of prosperity for Egypt and the world'.

Please note the small size of this artwork.

Gabriele Carelli (1820/21–1900)

Gabriele Carelli (1820/21–1900) is the best-known member of a dynasty of Italian landscape painters. Born in Naples, the second son of the artist Raffaele Carelli, a member of the ‘School of Posilippo’. He first studied under his father, before moving to Rome in 1837 with his brother Consalvo (also an artist), to continue his studies.

After three years in Rome Gabriele Carelli returned to Naples, where he established a studio at Largo del Vasto. Gabriele’s father had been patronised by William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, since the 1830s and in 1847, Gabriele also received his patronage. He travelled with him to England as his personal painter, where he became acquainted with the Devonshire estates and befriended some of the Duke’s employees, including the gardener Joseph Paxton.

On his return to Italy Gabriele Carelli continued to work in Naples, under the influence of the Belgian artist Frans Vervloet, who had joined the Posilippo School. Then from around 1860 onwards he spent more time in England, relocating to Kenilworth, Warwickshire in 1866. He married an Englishwoman, with whom he had a son, Conrad, who would also become a watercolour artist.

In the 1870s and 1880s he made regular and extensive journeys across Britain and Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, exhibiting works based on these travels at the Royal Academy and elsewhere. His work came to the attention of Queen Victoria, who went on to purchase more than twenty-five of his works and commissioned him to record the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore House. She also supported his son Conrad.

Towards the end of his life Carelli retired to his summer home at Menton, on the French Riviera.

Gabriele Carelli’s work is represented in the Royal Collection.