Armenia & Turkey: Mid-19th-century Watercolours from the Circle of Elijah Walton
This picture forms part of a fascinating collection of works that we have for sale from a mid-19th-century artist-traveller in the Near East. Our artist was one of a number of British travellers who continued their Grand Tour east into the Ottoman Empire—an extension which could be achieved with some ease due to long-standing trade and diplomatic connections between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. But rather than taking in the classic sites such as Constantinople, Palmyra and Damascus, the landscapes in these paintings, dating from 1851 onwards, centre around the less charted region around Erzurum in Turkey, spelt 'Erzeroom' by the artist and described as being in Armenia. The fascinating sites include the 'Genoese castle' at Baïboort (Bayburt Castle in Turkey), an ancient kumbet tomb at Erzurum, and a family encampment of tents at Hintz—tents being the oldest type of dwellings used in Turkey and deeply rooted in Turkish culture, with whole populations historically living in 'tent cities'. There are also depictions of local architectural and decorative ornament, the region bearing the influence of a rich mixture of Ottoman, Turkish and Persian styles. Our artist appears to have then travelled on to Mosul in Iraq and by 1860 is in Cairo in Egypt.
One of the watercolours in the collection, a mountain study, is inscribed 'Effect by Walton', presumed to be Elijah Walton (1832–1880), a successful watercolourist, known for his mountain scenery and atmospheric effects. In 1860 Walton travelled to Switzerland and then on to Egypt, Syria and Constantinople, spending the next five years working either in the Alps or the Near East. Our artist presumably encountered Walton here, possibly in Egypt around 1860. There are also interesting later watercolours in the collection, including Scottish landscapes from the 1860s and Swiss views from the 1890s.
