Iskander Bey and His Servant

Iskander Bey and His Servant

John Frederick Lewis

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This steely-eyed boy dressed in ceremonial Albanian military uniform was the son of Sulayman Pasha al-Faransawi. The latter had been born in France as Octave-Joseph-Anthelme Sève, served under Napoleon, then moved to Egypt to help modernize its army. He eventually converted to Islam, changed his name, and married a Greek woman. This portrait of their son communicates the family’s status at the top of Egyptian society; the boy, attended by a Nubian holding a rifle, sits ramrod straight and prepares to draw his sword. Lewis reached Egypt in 1841 and remained for nearly a decade to record the region’s dress, architecture, and customs. An earlier version of this portrait, inscribed 1848, shows the attendant with a horsehair whisk instead of a peacock-feather fan.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Iskander Bey and His ServantIskander Bey and His ServantIskander Bey and His ServantIskander Bey and His ServantIskander Bey and His Servant

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.