466 - William James Müller,

William James Müller, British 1812-1845- A Gypsy girl from the Lycia region in Anatolia, standing full-length; pencil and watercolour on paper, 27.7 x 15.2 cm. Provenance: with Bill Thomson, Albany Gallery, London; his sale [The Bill Thomson collection of paintings, watercolours and drawings by William James Müller 1812-1845], Sotheby's, London 25 November 1999, lot 82 (£2,185). with Martyn Gregory, London [VG347]. Note: Of Prussian descent, William James Müller was born in Bristol and became the best-known painter of the Bristol School. His work focused on landscape and figure painting, both in oils and watercolours, and at an early stage it was informed by Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), Jacob van Ruisdael (1629-1682), and Salomon van Ruysdael (c.1602-1670). Müller started exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1833, a year before setting off to travel across France, Switzerland, and Italy. Many more trips followed this first European tour, to Athens, Alexandria, Cairo, the Nile, and Luxor in 1838-39 and to Lycia, in nowadays Turkey, in 1843-1844. It must have been during this time that he painted the present watercolour of a Gypsy Lycian girl wearing traditional costume. Müller's time in south west Turkey was deeply marked by his attendance at the archaeological excavations of Xanthus, during which British archaeologist and explorer Charles Fellows (1799-1860) removed numerous marble statues, reliefs, and architectural fragments for the British Museum, such as the Nereid Monument, still visible nowadays in Room 17. The three months spent travelling, sketching, and painting in Lycia gave Müller enough material to keep working on for almost the rest of his life. Müller's 'Study of two boys in Turkish dress', comparable to the present lot, sold at Christie's, London, on 8 December 2011, lot 451 (£1,500).