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The Mosque at Nicæa, Asia Minor watercolour over pencil on paper 35.5 x 26cmCONDITION:Foxing and spotting in the sky area. A small tear along the cornice of the mosque in the left centre middle ground, just under the larger dome.Provenance: By descent in the artist's family; With Robert Miller, Hereford, July 2008, Private collection, Kensington, London Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1861, no. 922, as 'Oriental sketches: Mosque at Nicæa, Asia Minor' This and the following seven lots are by Edward Falkener, an explorer, architect and author. He enrolled at the Royal Academy in 1836, receiving a gold medal for a design of a cathedral in 1840. In 1842, he set out on a tour of Europe and went on to travel extensively through southern Italy, the Greek Islands and onto Asia Minor, Syria, Israel and Egypt. During his travels, he made studies of architectural remains in the places he visited. In 1847, whilst at Pompeii, he excavated the 'House of Marcus Lucretius', which he described in his Museum of Classical Antiquities, a journal of essays which he edited between 1851-55. On his travels through Asia Minor, he discovered a tomb in the valley of the Limyrus, Lycia (today’s Turkey), as he exhibited a work under this title at the Royal Academy as no. 459, in 1851. He went on to exhibit a number of works entitled Pompeian studies between 1853-1856 and a series of Oriental sketches between 1857-1859, relating to his explorations in Asia Minor. Falkener’s drawings were also exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855, for which he gained the grande médaille d'honneur. He was made a knight of the Order of the Dannebrog by Frederick VII of Denmark for his contribution to the restoration works of the Palace of Frederiksberg, for which Falkener provided his original sketches after the palace burnt down in 1859. In 1861, he received a gold medal from the King of Prussia for his publications on classical archaeology. In 1866, Falkener married and retired to Glanymor, Wales, last exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1873. He was a member of the Architectural Institutes of Berlin and Rome and was later elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in December 1895.

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