Voyages and travels

George Annesley, Viscount Valentia, was probably the first European traveller in Ethiopia in the nineteenth century.

Valentia left England in June 1802 on the Minerva, for a Grand Tour of the East with Henry Salt. They were both antiquarians and avid collectors. Salt had earlier finished his training with the topographical draughtsman and diarist, Joseph Farington, and Valentia appointed him to be his official artist and secretary for the tour. The first volume deals with India and Sri Lanka - with sections on Benares, Calcutta, Lucknow, Ceylon, etc. - the second two volumes cover Abyssinia and the Red Sea, including much relating to Mocha.

'Salt's work is notable not only because it continues the picturesque tradition, but also because by collecting views from different areas of the East he helped to visually reinforce the distinction between East and West. This polarization reflects the Orientalist-thinking of the time. Salt used the picturesque to a vision of the East. He included elements of 'exoticness' such elephants and camels and unfamiliar foliage and vegetation. He also focused on the representation of numerous architectural ruins and religious buildings that seemed so foreign to a Western audience. While the construction of the landscape adhered to a Western tradition of painting, the content of his images was meant to showcase the diversity of the East for the purposes of Annesley's displays back home.' (Sara Miller McCune Collection, UCSB).