An Arab Sheikh, and Tents in the Egyptian Desert. Thomas B. Seddon (1821-1885). Oil on canvas. 18 1/4 x 14 inches (46.4 x 35.5 cm). Private collection. [You may use this image for any scholarly or educational purpose without prior permission provided you cite the painter's name (Thomas Seddon), and this website.]
It has been suggested that this work is the oil version of Richard Burton in Oriental Costume. It is much more colourful, however, and the background differs significantly from the watercolour. The pose of the figure of the Sheikh also differs significantly, and Burton's features are much more convincing in the watercolour version, suggesting the oil has been misidentified. The individual in the oil painting certainly appears older than Burton would have been at this time. The oil is likely the painting Seddon referred to in a letter to Ford Madox Brown of April 2, 1855 as "the Shekh in white dress" that he hoped a wealthy lawyer Joseph Arden would purchase (141). The painting must surely be An Arab Sheikh, and Tents in the Egyptian Desert that Seddon exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856, no. 9. A description in the catalogue stated it was "Painted on the Spot."
This was one of the Orientalist pictures shown at Seddon's semi-public exhibition held at his studio at No. 14 Berners Street in 1855. W. M. Rossetti writing in The Spectator found some of these figurative works reminiscent of J. F. Lewis: "The last three are figure-subjects, – an Arab and Dromedary at the city of the dead, Cairo; an Arab Sheikh; and a Sheikh with a camel lying down. Here the same earnest fidelity which distinguishes the landscapes is applied to humans and brute life; and here also we are reminded of the excellences of Lewis, simply because we recognize the higher excellence of truth" (392). When this painting was later shown at the Royal Academy in 1856 a critic for The Art Journal did not find the composition entirely successful, however: "No. 9. An Arab Sheikh and Tents in the Egyptian Deserts[sic], T. B. Seddon. A small picture, in which the sheikh is seen standing, and in the background, at a little distance, appears the camp. The impersonation, we doubt not, is very characteristic, and the whole is most elaborately worked out: but there is yet something insipid in these sunny shadeless breadths of desert, which no skilful painting can qualify" (162).
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Bibliography
Rossetti, William Michael, "Fine Arts. Oriental Pictures by Mr. Seddon." The Spectator XXVIII (14 April 1855): 392.
Seddon, John Pollard. Memoir and Letters of the Late Thomas Seddon, Artist. London: John Nisbet, 1858, 141.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series II (1 June 1856): 161-74.
Created 27 March 2024