Lady Anne Blunt, Sheykh Obeyd

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Lady Anne Blunt (1837-1917)

Ibn Nura and Aruss in a landscape overlooking Kafr Jamus near Cairo, watercolour inscribed '10th April 1899, Aruss, off hind leg white to hock & narrow blaze, Ibn Nura '. On the reverse 'Kafr Jamus'.

This rare jewel-like watercolour is painted by one of the most important figures in the history of the purebred Arabian horse. Lady Anne Blunt was born into an illustrious family, her mother was Ada Lovelace, the mathematician and first computer programmer, and her grandfather was the poet Lord Byron. Lady Anne's lifelong mission was to safeguard the bloodline of the asil Arabian and it is thanks to her journal and her books that we know so much about her and the lineage of the purebred Arabian. The books, 'The Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates' (1878) and 'A Pilgrimage to Neyd' (1881) are attributed to her and were based on her journals, although extensively edited by her husband Wilfrid Scawen Blunt.

Together with her husband Wilfrid, she traversed Syria and greater Arabia during 1877-1881, making three journeys, including a visit to India, in search of purebred Arabians for a new stud farm at Crabbet Park in England. Travelling through the Nejd in 1879 was hazardous and full of hardship. Lady Anne recorded one incident during the crossing of the Wady Sirhan. She and Wilfrid had accidently separated from their guide Mohammed when they were suddenly charged down by a group of Roala horsemen. Although dressed in Bedouin attire the Blunts spoke no Arabic and the situation was only resolved by their guide who had returned to intercede on their behalf. After this confrontation the importance of learning Arabic must have been clear to Lady Anne if their quest was to succeed, and being a natural linguist she emerged from the desert five months later having taught herself to speak it fluently. In so doing she became the first western woman to cross the Great Nefud desert on horseback, visiting Jof [Jawf], Jobba [Jubbah] and Hail.

During their travels they discovered that the late Abbas Pasha I, Viceroy of Egypt and Sudan, had acquired a group of purebred Arabians from the Nejd back in 1850 through his connection to Faisal Ibn Turki al Saud and Mohamed al Khalifah. This information led them to Cairo and the stables of Ali Pasha Sherif who had purchased approximately 30 horses from Abbas Pasha's original stock. The Blunts were also keen to find out about the asil lineages from Ali Pasha and the meticulously kept records of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript.
In 1882 Lady Anne and Wilfrid purchased the 37 acre walled garden of Sheykh Obeyd just outside Cairo and set about building their second stud farm. During the following years a number of purebred horses were transported back to England and Crabbet Park. Some were acquired from Ali Pasha Sherif's stables but many were bred and sold by Lady Anne and Wilfrid at Sheykh Obeyd. The Blunts divided their time between overseeing both stables in England and Egypt, but when their marriage finally broke down in 1906 it was clear that Lady Anne's heart was set on Sheykh Obeyd. She spent several months there every year until she left England for good in 1915, living at Sheykh Obeyd until her death in 1917. The landscape of the present watercolour is very different today as over time the estate has been swallowed up by the ever expanding city of Cairo.

Lady Anne was an accomplished artist who was taught by the Pre-Raphaelite art critic, John Ruskin, the master of watercolour painting. There is little doubt she would have been pleased with the outcome of the present watercolour. In her journal she mentions riding out to a hillock overlooking Kafr Jamus with Wilfrid and their daughter Judith on her 16th birthday, so perhaps this high ground was a favourite place. It is assumed that the mare Aruss was a riding horse as she is not listed in the Sheykh Obeyd stud book, but the grey stallion Ibn Nura was special. He was a Dahman Najib, a substrain of the Dahman Shahwan, the breed so beloved by the Bedouin from the Nejd with a lineage that could be traced back centuries to the Qahtan-Katan tribe. Ibn Nura was already an old horse when Lady Anne acquired him in 1897 at the final auction of Ali Pasha Sherif's stable. At the preview she described him in her journal as ' fleabitten fine but v.old magnificent head' and yet she knew he was a prize catch. After buying him for thirty Egyptian pounds she made him the only working sire at Sheykh Obeyd for the next three years. A testament to her admiration and devotion for the breed that had once lured her and Wilfrid into the desert some 20 years earlier.

This is possibly the last opportunity to acquire one of Lady Anne's Arabian horse subjects. Virtually all her watercolours of Arabians were sold by Bearne's Auctioneers in their sale on 7th November 2007, and we now assume this collection has gone into private ownership [a catalogue of this auction is included with the sale of this watercolour]. The present watercolour was purchased more recently from Bearne's and carries the same provenance.

Provenance:

Lady Anne Isabella Noel Blunt, 15th Baroness Wentworth, née Anne Isabella Noel King.
Lady Wentworth, 16th Baroness Wentworth, Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt-Lytton.
In 1957, under her will the collection passed to her Land Agent, Mr Gladstone Moore and thence by descent. PriceEnquire DimensionsSheet size 18 x 23 cms Category Antique Pictures / Engravings / Art > Antique Watercolours Date 10th April 1899 Late Victorian Antiques Material Paper Condition Strong colour, overall good condition Item code as988a051 Status For Sale

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Lady Anne Blunt, Sheykh Obeyd

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