WILLIAM JAMES MÜLLER (BRITISH 1812–1845)
The slave market, Cairo
Signed l.r.: WMuller (lower right)
oil on canvas
61 x 101 cm

PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Florida, USA, until 2021

Müller arrived in Egypt by steamer in November 1838. He was one of the first established European artists to visit Egypt and was there at at the same time as David Roberts, although neither knew of the other’s presence there.

Müller was exhilarated by his arrival in the bustling metropolis of Cairo and was particularly intrigued by the slave market, which he described as ‘one of my most favourite haunts’ (W. J. Müller, ‘An Artist’s Tour of Egypt’, Art-Union 1 (London, 1839), pp. 131-2). He recorded the market, where he sketched on many occasions, in some detail, providing a uniquely detailed depiction of an European’s reaction to the ‘revolting’ place:

‘One enters this building, which is situated in a quarter the most dark, dirty and obscure of any at Cairo, by a sort of lane - then one arrives at some large gates. The market is held in an open court, surrounded with arches of the Roman character. In the centre of this court the slaves are exposed for sale, and in general to the number of from thirty to forty- nearly all young, many quite infants. The scene is of a revolting nature, yet I did not see, as I expected, the dejection and sorrow I was led to imagine. The more beautiful of the females I found were confined in a chamber over the court. They are in general Abyssinians and Circassians. When anyone desired to purchase I not unfrequently saw the master remove the entire covering of the female, a thick woollen cloth, and expose her to the gaze of bystanders. Most of these girls are exceedingly beautiful, small features, well formed, with an eye that bespeaks the warmth of passion they possess…. in this place did I feel more delight than any other part of Cairo; the groups and the extraordinary costume can but please the artist. You meet in this place all nations. When I was sketching, which I did on many occasions, the masters of the slaves could in no manner understand my occupation, but were continually giving the servant the price of the different slaves, to desire me to write the same down, thinking I was about to become a large buyer’ (W.J. Müller,’ An Artist’s Tour of Egypt’, Art Union, September 1839, p. 131).

Briony Llewellyn observes that a variety of colour and nations could easily be found in other areas of Cairo and wonders if Müller’s artistic enthusiasm at the sight of half-naked women is perhaps questionable (‘Black Victorians’, ed. Jan Marsh, 2006, ‘Observations and Interpretation: Travelling Artists in Egypt’, p. 36). She observes that, ‘slavery in Egypt was written about by many travellers, with a mixture of fascination and abhorrence, part of the colourful life of contemporary Egypt’.

The artist’s juxtoposition of the two figure groups in this painting reflect Müller’s written comments about the Cairo slave market. The two kneeling, near naked slaves, one of them having their head roughly felt by either the vendor or the prospective purchaser, are a shocking image, both to Müller’s contemporaries and to today’s viewer. Their misery is clearly depicted and there is tension between the guard with his spear and the two standing figures nervously awaiting their inspection. However, the seated group of slaves, including a mother playing with her child, provide a counterpoint to this and introduce a more relaxed normality into the composition, reflecting the artist’s comments that not all was ‘dejection and sorrow’ in the slave market.

Between 1840 and 1843 Müller showed four pictures of the Cairo slave market at the Royal Academy and the British Institution, reflecting the intense contemporary interest in what was a highly topical issue. The implementation of the Slavery Act of 1833 (further to the banning of the slave trade in 1807) and the final emancipation of slaves in the British empire in 1838 saw Britain turning its attention on slavery elsewhere, and in 1837-8 a government mission made investigations and representations about slave trading to Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt. The Ottoman Empire finally signed the Brussels Conference Act in 1890 for the suppression of the slave trade.

Other smaller works in oils treating this subject are now in the Bury Art Gallery and Museum (‘Slave Market’, 1841, oil on panel, 37 x 61.5 cm) and Leicester City Art Gallery (‘Slave Market, Cairo, oil on panel 27.3 x 40.6 cm). The Guildhall Art Gallery, London has ‘Slave Market, Cairo’ oil on panel, 61 x 104 cm, similar in size to the present work. Müller is also said to have painted ‘three or four copies’ of a picture entitled ‘Selling a Slave in Alexandria’, whose current whereabouts are unknown.

The present work is highly likely to have been one of Müller’s exhibition pictures. It appears to be the only oil on canvas depicting this subject and it may have been the work sold at Christie’s by Albert Levy on 31 March 1876, lot 141, bought by Agnew for £2,898.

Müller is the best-known artist of the Bristol School. His German father settled in the city and was the first curator of the Bristol Institution, the forerunner of the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. His early exposure to art led to a short apprenticeship with James Baker Pyne and a friendship with the Reverend James Bulwer (1749-1879), a pupil of John Sell Cotman, whose collection of Norwich School drawings Müller would have known.

In 1833 Müller was one of the founders of the Bristol Sketching Club and his travels began the following year with visits to Holland, Germany and Venice. His 1838 trip started in Athens before he continued to Cairo. In 1840 he visited France and in 1843 he went to Lycia at the same time as Sir Charles Fellows’ expedition, during which he produced some of his finest watercolours. He died at the age of 43 after his return from Turkey.

Following Müller’s death, prices of his oil paintings rose dramatically in the salerooms. Articles on his work appeared regularly and in 1875 N. Neal Solly, the biographer of David Cox, wrote a long biography. In 1896 the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery held a retrospective of 192 of Müller’s paintings, watercolour and drawings. His reputation was kept alive in Bristol where the150th anniversary of his birth in 1962 was celebrated with an exhibition at Bristol Art Gallery, while in 1984 Tate Gallery held a show of his French and Lycian watercolours. In 1991 a major retrospective was held at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, who hold the most comprehensive collection of his work, organised by Francis Greenacre, the renowed authority on Müller and the Bristol School.