- Museum number
- 2017,7019.1
- Description
-
On the Road to Bouja, Gulf of Smyrna; coast on left with rocky outcrop into gulf waters, with small boat below hills and mountains on far side of gulf in distance. 1843
Watercolour over faint graphite sketch, with touch of white bodycolour on sails, with studio stamp l.r., in original Vokins frame from artist's studio sale
- Production date
- 1843
- Dimensions
-
Height: 413 millimetres (frame)
-
Height: 252 millimetres (sight)
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Width: 513 millimetres (frame)
-
Width: 342 millimetres (sight)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- In 1842, at the age of sixteen, Harry Johnson became a pupil of the landscape artist William Müller. From letters written by Müller to both Harry and Harry’s father, Benjamin, it is clear that much of his training, not unusually, consisted of Harry copying or completing his teacher’s works. In a letter of the 4th May 1843 Müller wrote to his pupil from Bristol, ‘I am at work on a picture, and I am still on your charity. I forward two sketches; pray take care of them and try and make a copy of them.’ (Quoted Solly, p. 170.) The present watercolour bears a clear resemblance to Müller’s own work in the relatively broad handling of the medium.
Müller and Johnson landed in Smyrna, (modern-day Izmir on the southern coast of Turkey), on the 4th October 1843. Müller had been invited by the archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows, who was returning to the region to remove the marbles he had previously discovered in Xanthus. These marbles were presented by Fellows to the British Museum on his return (see, for example, items 1848,1020.1-29). According Johnson’s own account of the trip, he was invited to accompany Müller as much as a companion as a pupil (Solly, p. 204). The road to Bouja (the modern suburb of Izmir, Buca) would have formed the first part of their expedition south from Smyrna to Xanthus. This drawing appears to come from the very start of the journey, looking back across the Gulf of Smyrna. The sketch remained in Johnson’s position and was sold in his studio sale after his death in December 1884; it is still in its original Vokins frame, with the details of this sale attached to the reverse. A watercolour by Müller, likewise entitled ‘On the Road to Bouja’, (though evidently further along the route inland than the present drawing), can also be found in the British Museum Collection (1878,1228.95). It should be noted that both this and Johnson’s drawing are titled in, what appears to be, the same hand. This, and the resemblance to Müller’s style, could lead us to question the authorship of the work.
Further reading:
N. N. Solly, Memoir of the Life of W.J. Muller, Chapman & Hall, London, 1875.
This curatorial comment was written by Olivia Ghosh, Anne Christopherson Fellow in Dept. of Prints and Drawings, July 2017
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2017
- Acquisition notes
- This watercolour was included in the artist's studio sale at Christies in 1885 where it was purchased by 'Walford' for £2.5s. Its location until it appeared in the Christie's sale in 2007 where Charles Nugent purchased it, is unknown.
This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2017,7019.1
