Granada, Alhambra, Patio del Mexuar

Granada, Alhambra, Patio del Mexuar  

Harriet Ford, 1831 

Pencil and wash on buff paper 

Harriet Ford and her husband Richard spent the summers of 1831 and 1833 at the Alhambra in Granada. The couple gained an intimate knowledge of their environment while living in the Alhambra palace during their first stay and in a rented house, then known as Casa Sánchez, in the grounds of the complex. Richard’s drawings mostly focused on the exterior views of the monument, while Harriet captured several interior spaces in a series of pencil drawings, including the courtyards of the Lions, the Myrtles, the Comares, and the Mexuar, which is shown here. Ford later added an inscription on the back of the drawing, stating that the view was taken from the passage leading to the kitchen in the quarters where they spent the summer of 1831, and that the window with the flowerpot opened onto his dressing room.  

Harriet Ford (née Capell) had married Ford in 1824. She had four children between 1825 and 1830. It was partly due to Harriet’s weakened state of health, following her multiple pregnancies and the death of her second son, that the couple and their three children decided to live in warmer climes in southern Spain. They departed in June 1830 and stayed three years in Andalucía, dividing their time between Seville and Granada. Harriet accompanied her husband on a tour of eastern Spain in the autumn of 1831, and on an excursion to Tangier and Tetouan in May 1833. The Fords left Spain in the autumn of 1833, returning via Madrid and Paris to London. Two years later they separated, and Harriet went to live with her father, George Capel-Coningsby, Viscount Essex, in Cassiobury. She died suddenly in 1837. Her drawings of Spain include architectural views of Granada, Seville, and Córdoba. Despite their remarkable quality, they were never published as prints.   

Title: Granada, Alhambra, Patio del Mexuar.  

Author/Artist: Harriet Ford (1806-1837). 

Technique and Material: pencil and wash on buff paper. 

Size: 373 x 510 mm. 

Published: n/a 

Date: 1831.  

Marks and Inscriptions: on the back: ‘Façade and Lienzo in the Patio de la Mezquita in the Alhambra taken from the passage leading to the kitchen in the Alcaide’s quarters in which we spent the summer of 1831: drawn by Harriet Ford: the window with the flower pot opened into my dressing room’.  

Institution: Ford Family Collection.