210 - Carl Haag,

Carl Haag, German 1820-1915- Study of a resting camel, Cairo; pencil and watercolour on paper, signed 'Carl Haag' (lower right), inscribed, and dated 'Cairo. 11:12:58.' (lower left), 17.2 x 28.9 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: Bavarian-Born painter Carl Haag trained in the Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts and in Munich before moving to England to study at the Royal Academy Schools. His preferred medium was that of watercolour, and in 1853 he became a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, after three years as an associate. In the early 1950s he met the Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who would appoint him as his court painter. Through him and Charles, Prince of Leiningen, he met Queen Victoria, sister-in-law of the former and half-sister of the latter. They commissioned works from him and invited him to Balmoral to paint and record the Royal Family's time there. In the late 1950s he travelled to Egypt, where he shared a studio in Cairo with Frederick Goodall (1822-1904), to Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. The present lot was executed during this sojourn in Egypt, which he would visit again in the mid-1970s. The grand majority of his works are scenes of Orientalist inspiration, portraits of Bedouins, caravans, and camels, and land and cityscapes of the Middle East, particularly the Holy Land, and of the Mediterranean. The motif of the camel lying down, wearing a saddle and reins as if resting during a trip, appears often in Haag's works, and similar figures appear in watercolours by the artist which sold at Sloane Street Auctions on 2 May 2025, lot 386 (£13,500 hammer), and at Christie's, London, on 4 June 2024, lot 40 (£6,930).