The Ramesseum at Thebes

John Frederick Lewis, between 1841 and 1851

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Artist: John Frederick Lewis (British, 1805–1876)
Medium: Watercolor, white gouache, black chalk and graphite with scratching out on medium, slightly textured, beige wove paper
Size: Sheet: 13 3/4 × 20 1/8 inches (34.9 × 51.1 cm)
Museum: Yale Center for British Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

During his residency in Egypt from 1840 to 1851, Lewis made several excursions to Upper Egypt. This drawing was probably made in 1850, when he traveled up the Nile to visit Edfou, Luxor, and the cataracts at Assouan. Lewis depicts the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Ramesses II and a favorite subject among contemporary artists and photographers. Its huge statues and vast proportions had long been known to travelers, but it was best known in Lewis’s time as the site of the statue immortalized in Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias.

Unlike David Roberts, who also drew this temple, Lewis shows little interest in recording its hieroglyphic inscriptions, employing the monument instead as the backdrop to a subtle narrative. The donkey and tent are not meant for the two Arab men but for unseen visitors to the temple. The passive expressions and postures of this little group suggest that they have become accustomed to waiting for dawdling European tourists, who were streaming into Egypt in 1850 in ever growing numbers.

Text: Yale Center for British Art.