The Painting
A watercolour measuring 13¼" x 9". Signed Ernest George and inscribed “The Memnon,
Thebes”.
About the Artist
Sir Ernest George RA, RE, PRIBA (1839-1922) was born in Southwark, London, and educated
at Clapham, Brighton and Reading. He entered the Royal Academy School in 1858 and
was awarded the Gold Medal in 1859. In 1861 he opened his own architectural practice.
He won the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1896, and became President of the
Royal Institute of British Architects in 1908. He was knighted in 1911, elected Associate
of the Royal Academy in 1910 and Royal Academician in 1917. He exhibited at the Fine
Art Society (760), Royal Academy (43), Royal Society of British Artists (19), Royal
Hibernian Academy (14), and Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours (3).
George’s watercolours were mostly the result of holiday tours. Sir H. Von Herkomer
RA considered him ‘one of the finest architectural water-colourists of his generation.’
Fellow architect and former pupil Sir Edward Guy Dawber (1861-1938) noted: ‘beyond
everything else Ernest George was an artist, with perhaps more of a bias towards
the picturesque in architecture than the monumental, but as a draughtsman and water-colour
painter he was absolutely unrivalled. For years he went abroad to all parts of Europe
to study and sketch, and found inspiration in the great cities of the world, and
on these excursions he did... sketches and pictures, brilliant in execution and showing
to the full his wonderful power and skill... Many of his water-colour drawings will
rank with those of our greatest architectural artists. His work was so free, so delicate
and yet forcible. His drawings show a delightful freedom and yet absolute accuracy
of perspective, a power of selection and composition which always appeals.’
Professor Hilary J. Grainger has recently published a landmark new book on the architecture
of Sir Ernest George, the first major study to be devoted to him.
The Subject
The Colossi of Memnon, Egypt. Pharaoh Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty) built a mortuary
temple in Thebes (now Luxor). All that remains of this temple are the two gigantic
statues of the pharaoh, made from carved blocks of Quartzite, which guarded the outer
gates. The statues are 23 meters high and weigh 1,000 tons. The northern statue depicts
Amenhotep III with his mother, Mutemwia, while the southern statue is of Amenhotep
with his wife, Tiy, and one of his daughters. On the sides of the statues are reliefs
depicting Nile gods, joining together plants symbolising Upper and Lower Egypt. Following
an earthquake in 27 BC, the statues emitted a bell-like tone that usually occurred
in the morning due to rising temperatures and humidity. They were thus compared by
early Greek travellers with the figure of Memnon, son of Aurora whose mother, Eos,
was the goddess of dawn. The Roman emperor Septimius Severus, seeking to repair the
statues in 199 AD, inadvertently silenced them forever.
