Valley of Vardan, Caucasus 1855–58 William Simpson Colnaghi & Company commisioned Simpson to cover the Crimean War in 1854, and he sent drawings back to London in the official army mail bag. After the fall of Sevastopol in 1855, he joined a group that explored Caucasia, the mountainous region between the Black and Caspian Seas, led by Henry Pelham, 5th Duke of Newcastle. Simpson’s inscriptions on this view of a steep river valley indicate that it was begun October 19, 1855, and finished in 1858, presumably back in London. Paul Theroux noted, “The Victorian age produced many remarkable artist-t

Valley of Vardan, Caucasus 1855–58 William Simpson Colnaghi & Company commisioned Simpson to cover the Crimean War in 1854, and he sent drawings back to London in the official army mail bag. After the fall of Sevastopol in 1855, he joined a group that explored Caucasia, the mountainous region between the Black and Caspian Seas, led by Henry Pelham, 5th Duke of Newcastle. Simpson’s inscriptions on this view of a steep river valley indicate that it was begun October 19, 1855, and finished in 1858, presumably back in London. Paul Theroux noted, “The Victorian age produced many remarkable artist-travelers, and Simpson was one of the best of them—truthful, intrepid and very talented…the first war artist. In a sense we know more of the Crimean War from [his] lithographs than from Alexander Kinglake’s many volumes of official history. But Simpson was also a prolific writer, a journalist, amateur archeologist, and a watercolorist of distinction.". Valley of Vardan, Caucasus. William Simpson (British, Glasgow, Scotland 1823–1899 London). 1855–58. Watercolor and gouache (bodycolor) over graphite. Drawings

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