354 - British School,

British School, early 19th century- Naval officers inspecting Egyptian obelisks amongst the 'Ruins of Old Alexandria'; pencil and watercolour on paper,inscribed 'Ruins of Old Alexandria - taken in H.M.S. Rose - Jany 21 - 1822 / a. a heap of brick ruins _ b. ruins of the old town. under this building are several arched excavations like cellars _ c. a Turkish mosque / d. a Coptic convent _ e. large granite columns finely polished except on the SE side which seems to have been corroded by / the weather_ as I unmasked this also in Pompey's pillar & Cleopatra's needle it may probably be occasioned by the drift / of sand with the Siroc[?] winds which are extremely prejudicial in Egypt & the court of Barbary' verso, 16 x 40.4 cm. Provenance: The Estate of John Byrne (1945-2025). Note: HMS Rose was an 18-gun Royal Navy sloop-of-war operating in the Mediterranean launched in 1821, which was heavily involved in protecting British merchant shipping from piracy in the early years of the Greek War of Independence. In the early years the ship was under the command of Captain Thomas Bourchier Clowes (1791-1849), who kept a journal of the ship's voyage in 1821-23, whilst records of the ship's voyages in the Mediterranean can be found in the Memoirs of George Grey (1803-1833).