The Poop

Simpson came from a humble Scottish family and received little formal education. He started as an apprentice in the Glasgow lithographic firm of David Macfarlane and at the same time attended evening classes at the Glasgow School of Design. He moved to London in 1851 and was sent to the Baltic by Colnaghi to record the Crimean War. He arrived there in 1854 and set about recording not only the battles but also the life and struggles of the common soldier. So popular were the prints resulting from this trip he became known as “Crimean Simpson”. He had established him as an important war artist and war correspondent, being a vital traveling contributor to the Illustrated London News. In the late 1850s he was sent to India to sketch scenes relating to the recent Indian Mutiny, arriving in Calcutta on 29 October 1859. In 1866 the Illustrated London News sent him to St Petersburg to cover the marriage of the Czarevich (later Alexander III) and two years later he was in East Africa to cover the Abyssinian Campaign. In 1870 he recorded the Franco Prussian war and the Paris Commune and in 1872 he was in Beijing to sketch the Chinese Emperor’s wedding festivities. 1878 saw him again leaving London, this time to cover the Afghan wars. The present work presents a different side to Simpson’s work and depicts andintimate, and indeed romantic, moment on his voyage to India in 1859.