Cedars of Lebanon

Mathias employed light, fluid brushwork typical of 19th-century topographical watercolour. The trees are rendered with minimal but deliberate strokes, capturing texture without heavy detail. Muted tones of brown, grey, and pale green dominate, with subtle blue washes suggesting atmospheric perspective. The signature, executed in watercolour, integrates seamlessly into the composition, indicating a deliberate, unadorned aesthetic.

The watercolour was part of a bound album of travel sketches made between 1856 and 1857. After Mathias’s lifetime, the album entered the market and was auctioned at Christie’s in 1978. Several sheets, including this one, were acquired by The Fine Art Society before being purchased by the Royal Geographical Society, where it remains in their collection as part of a broader archive of 19th-century travel documentation.

Mathias’s work emerged during a period when amateur female artists increasingly documented foreign landscapes, often as part of educational or familial travel. Her watercolours contributed to a growing visual record of the Eastern Mediterranean, distinct from official surveys or colonial expeditions. These private records offered intimate, observational perspectives on regions rarely depicted by women in public collections at the time.

Though not widely exhibited during her lifetime, Mathias’s album remains a valuable resource for understanding 19th-century travel practices and the role of women in visual documentation. Her restrained style and attention to natural detail offer a quiet counterpoint to more dramatic Orientalist imagery of the era. The work’s preservation in the Royal Geographical Society underscores its significance as a historical record rather than a decorative object.