Object Details

From:NHerts

Name/TitleDamascus Gate, Jerusalem, 1895

About this objectThis small watercolour was painted during one of the artist’s trips around Europe and the Middle East with her travelling and life companion Margaret Thomas, in 1895.

Henrietta Pilkington (1845-1927) and Margaret Thomas (1842-1929) met in London in the 1870s. The two women became very close, travelling together throughout the 1890s before settling down in a house in Norton in 1911 where they lived until their deaths.

Their bond is memorialised on their shared headstone, where they are buried together. Beneath Henrietta Pilkington’s name it reads ‘The sweetest soul that ever looked with human eyes. Friends for sixty years.’

The Damascus Gate is one of seven gates that lead into the city of Jerusalem, described in Margaret Thomas’ book from their trip their together, Two Years in Palestine and Syria, as ‘the most beautiful of all, said to be on the site of that entered by the Crusaders when they first captured Jerusalem.’

The painting here shows the magnificence of the architecture in the background contrasted with the pastoral simplicity of sheep, dogs and donkeys collecting around the local people with their tent in the foreground.

This is one of four paintings donated to the museum upon the death of the artist by her partner Margaret Thomas, as noted on the reverse with the inscription ‘Presented in memory of the artist H M Pilkington by M Thomas.’

MakerHenrietta M Pilkington

Maker RoleArtist

Date Made1895

Period19th Century (1801-1900)

Medium and MaterialsWatercolour on paper

Place MadeIsrael,Jerusalem

Inscription and MarksIdentified on the bottom right front: Damascus Gate, Jerusalem 1895

Inscription on the reverse: Presented in memory of the artist H M Pilkington by M Thomas

Measurements170 x 230 mm

Named CollectionLetchworth Museum

Credit LineMargaret Thomas, Countryside, Croft Lane, Letchworth

Object TypePainting

Object number1927.4284

Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved