The work of David Roberts is ubiquitous across tourist-visited Egypt, where prints of the Scottish artist’s sketches adorn the walls and breakfast tables of international hotels. Similarly, the shelves in temple gift shops up and down the River Nile buckle under the weight of his book Egypt and Nubia (1842-1849) and its associated ephemera. Yet his paintbrush and pen(cil) – which arguably invite the viewer and reader to conclude that Muslim maladministration was the reason the country regressed from a praiseworthy past into a purported pitiable present – are open to accusations of Islamophobia specifically and abuse of artistic licence more generally.
The same cannot be said of Robert Talbot Kelly (1861-1934), however, possibly the best Orientalist artist AE readers have never heard of, despite his watercolours once hanging (alongside those of his disciple Augustus Osborne Lamplough) in Cairo’s legendary Shepheard’s Hotel, and copies of his book selling in the city’s Khan el-Khalili bazaar.
Early Life
Kelly was born in Birkenhead, Wirral, in January 1861, the fourth of eleven children fathered by Dublin-born artist Robert George Kelly. He was confusingly christened Robert George, but later changed to Robert Talbot Kelly to avoid any confusion with his father.
War Classics – The Reason Why