Artist: Ralph Bruce (biography)
Medium: Gouache on Board
Size: 11" x 6" (270mm x 160mm)
Date: 1981
Signature: Signed by artist lower right outside image

This is the Signed unique original Gouache painting by Ralph Bruce.

Wolff was an inveterate traveller in the Mid 19th Century. He had made one journey to Bokhara in central Turkestan. During this journey he had been robbed, sold into slavery, poisoned and flogged. Yet in 1853 he was back in London trying to raise funds to secure the release of two captured British officers in Bokhara.

After a long and arduous journey he arrived, spoke to the Emir but was held prisoner for a long time; the two officers were dead. Our painting shows a near lethal fall from a horse during his return journey; Wolff's beautifully written Persian had finally enticed the Emir to release him. Wolff retired to the life of a Parson in the West Country.

Illustration from page 116 of the Look and Learn Book 1982.