A Street Scene in Cairo

 William Holman Hunt

Date: 1854

Materials: Pencil 

 Rendezvous in Cairo

Hunt left for the Holy Land on 16 January 1854, travelling via Paris and Marseilles and arriving in Egypt in February, where he made a planned rendezvous with the painter Thomas Seddon. He had intended to travel onwards with Edward Lear, but only shared with him a week in Cairo. Hunt was enthralled by the sights and sounds of the city:

"The noise of life was like the ringing bells of a fiesta, and it was impossible to turn one's eyes from the open window, where each minute brought forward a new scene, each scene being one of the perennial dramas of the East".

Used as a background

This detailed sketch was used for the background to the small painting 'The Lantern-Maker's Courtship' (now also in the Birmingham collection), which was finished on the artist's return to England and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861.