John Schranz’s fourth article leading to the 2018 Schranz Artists Bicentenary celebrations focuses on Anton Schranz’s second son Antonio Schranz – a true bohemian and impassioned Romantic, whose boundless energy enabled him to undertake breathtaking travels. A future article will discuss his prolific artistic output.

The title of this article is a quote the opening essay of a Leighton House Museum (London) exhibition catalogue on Lebanon by eminent English historian of the Middle East Sarah Searight.

Trying to track down Antonio Schranz is like looking for a needle in a field of haystacks, or – more aptly – for a specific grain of sand dropped on a sandy beach.

His birth is well recorded in Menorca’s archives: January 31, 1801. One expects to find him listed in the passport his mother obtained for herself and the children to leave Mahón for Malta on July 12, 1818. Antonio, then 17, and his elder brother Giovanni, 23, are not listed. Neither are they registered obtaining passports separately.

A year earlier, their parents came to Malta with a joint passport, and Isabella subsequently returned to Menorca to complete her pregnancy and bring the family over. Leaving Menorca was a sudden decision, seven months after Anton had bought a house there. Aged only 20 when the French Revolution’s horrors started, Anton clearly foresaw Spain’s 50 internecine years: from the 1820 revolution to the bitter Carlist Wars bloodbaths.With his 10 children he could not risk living on a small island in times of vicious hatred.

Giovanni and Antonio, then in the flower of their youth, perhaps resisted the move, tied by relationships to their island home and fired by Romanticism’s revolutionary spirit. They were becoming artists – Anton must have given them a solid formation: only rigorous training could generate the absolute mastery evidenced in Antonio’s bewilderingly fast and frenetically free but superbly controlled pencil drawing of thousands of miniscule houses, huddled precariously on a steep slope in Adalia, myriad tiny lines, perfectly parallel – a nearly audible, orderly confusion!

Though without a passport, the two brothers still arrived with the family – the first of many times Antonio seemingly travels without one. On August 23, 1823, he returns from Corfú on the Prospero, registered as ‘Spagnuolo’; shipping registers seem not to record his departure however, nor do passport registers list him. Again, for his June 3, 1833, return from Poros, Greece, no departures and/or passport listing appear recorded. The Czar’s brig-of-war Telemaco, admitted to pratique immediately on arrival, discharged only him and left straight away. That return’s circumstances suggest an official commission (see ‘Giovanni Schranz – seen through what he saw’, October 16, 2016).

Robert Pashley’s Travels in Crete (John Murray, London, 1837) is that distinguished Cambridge scholar’s key work on Crete’s unique antiquities, its history, folklore and folk songs – a classic among writings on the Ottoman Empire. Pashley and Antonio scoured that island for nine months, with Antonio’s masses of drawings recording Pashley’s finds in lithographs and woodcuts. Pashley reached Malta on the Beacon on December 11, 1833, and left on the Hind on February 5, 1834, “accompanied by Signor Antonio Schranz, a native of Spain, domiciled with his family in Malta”. Again, passport register searches for Antonio drew a blank. To return, Pashley hired a schooner to Ancona in early October and thence to Venice. Antonio, who probably accompanied him there, reached Malta, registered, on December 22, 1834, from Livorno.

Antonio’s journeys, though unrecorded, bequeath us his prolific output: drawings, lithographs, woodcuts, engravings and watercolours, including a fine, 1831 set of 30 sepia washes, a watercolour and pencil drawings of Morea. Antonio’s cover inscription suggests he was very proud of this journey’s work:

“A collection of drawings/of Morea, drawn on the/spot by A. Schranz Junior 1831.”

That pride is understandable: Morea, the medieval name for today’s Peloponnese, embodies Greece’s revolution and war of independence from the Ottoman Empire’s 400-year occupation and rule, with independence finally being achieved in 1832. The cover inscription testifies that Antonio was in the thick of things: in March 1829 Greece and Turkey adhered to a cessation of hostilities protocol. In 1830-31 however, opposition to the new government saw escalating disorder and chaos, culminating in anarchy following the October 1831 assassination of Greece’s new President, Yannis Capodistrias. Of that journey only the paintings remain – no record of his obtaining a passport, neither of his departure or return.

Equally intriguing is Antonio’s juggling with identity and nationality, very easy for him, polyglot as he was. Born of a Spanish mother and bred in Menorca, he understandably often described himself as Spanish, as in the 1823 return. Indeed, years after arriving in Malta, the Schranzes kept seeing themselves as Spanish – except Anton the Elder, affectionately known as il-Ġermaniż. At times, Antonio declared he was English, as in October 1842, returning from Alexandria on HMS Phoenix with Lord Castlereagh. On other occasions he declared himself Maltese, as in February 1841, returning from Trieste on the Gloria.

Antonio’s linguistic abilities are reported by Lord Lindsay of Bibliotheca Lindesiana fame. On an eight-month tour through Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, Lindsay met Antonio in Damascus on June 4 1837, with two friends, John Pell and “Mr Alewyn”. In his book Letters on Egypt, Edom and the Holy Land (Henry Colburn, 1837) Lindsay describes them as “most agreeable, enlightened companions”, “a German artist”, “an Oxford man” and “a Dutchman [who] speaks English perfectly and enjoys Shakespeare”. Having heard of fighting in Palmyra, Antonio’s party gave up going there, as they had no Arab escort – indispensable, if one wished to remain alive. Palmyra being Lindsay’s destination, he invited them to join his well-armed caravan. They spent six weeks together. Lindsay says Antonio “speaks German, Spanish, Italian and Maltese as mother tongues, Greek and uncommonly good English”.

Most surprising is Antonio’s April 21, 1836, Ariadne departure for Smyrna and Constantinople: he declared himself “Antonio Schranz of Gibraltar” – with a passport this time, no. 180, issued on April 19. For three intriguing years he accompanied different travellers through deserts and vast, troubled territories in north Africa and the near East, producing works which feature in auction catalogues, collections and museums. As far as I could ascertain, this is his only journey with departure and arrival fully registered – truly he was a maverick, if ever there was one. Following his tracks is daunting.

“Antonio Schranz (1801 – after 1863)” is how his name appears in print: as with Giuseppe (thought to have died in Istanbul in the 1850s), Antonio’s date and place of death were unknown, emerging only in 2015, when I discovered his will and probate.

The estate amounted to £1433.2s.0d, liquid assets being £892.12s.0d. His oils, watercolours, photographs and sketches were valued at £375, the house with its garden, £100, photographic equipment, £35, a cupboard with valuable glassware, £5, and a bookcase with many books, £3. At face value, these figures are unimpressive – however, they are 150 years old.

The Purchasing Power Calculator (PPC), a unique instrument for calculating relative worth for values from AD1270 till 2015, is the brainchild of 18 top economists from as many universities, including Stephen Broadberry, Oxford University professorial fellow and professor of Economic History, Jeffrey Williamson, Harvard University emeritus faculty, Department of Economics and Sir Roderick Floud, Gresham College Honorary fellow, London Metropolitan University president emeritus.

The PPC’s effectiveness (www.measuringworth.com) can only be hinted, here.

Considering Antonio’s £1433.2s.0d estate in the PPC’s ‘income or wealth’ category gives two results: (a) as ‘labour earnings’, (b) as ‘economic status’. Averaging those results produces an astounding 2015 ‘relative value’ of £1,106,500 (€1,495,213.00 at the 2015 average £/€ rate).

Antonio’s house, described in the probate as “situata nelle Piramidi”, Pyramids Road, Cairo, minutes away from the Great Sphinx of Giza, validates the process:  PPC’s 2015 ‘relative value’ for 1865’s £100 is €122,590.00.

Particularly interesting are Antonio’s paintings. Each “quadro ad olio, grande” was valued £10; their 2015 relative ‘income value’ (as a ‘commodity’, not ‘labour earnings’) becomes €12,260 each – low for Schranz oils in Malta; very low for sales abroad: a pair auctioned in 2002 in Scotland fetched £98,000 (2015 ‘relative value’ €200,000). The website’s workings are far from overvalued.

A £2 estimate for each watercolour (2015 ‘relative value’ €2,452) is low, too. “Fotografie non co-lorate”, £0.2s.6d each (2015 ‘relative value’ €153.24) is very low: an Antonio Cairo salt print, signed, is for sale at $12,000 (€11,348) (www.iphotocentral .com/search /detail.php/0/5550/8452/1): in 1865, photographs were ‘modern’, ‘mysterious’ things, not vintage collectibles. Antonio’s photographic studio, opened in the late 1840s, was Cairo’s first – the only one, for 10 years.

Surprising, also, is the fact that after only three generations, Antonio’s relatives in Malta needed his probate to learn where and when he died, and that he had left descendants.

Antonio appointed his sisters Margherita and Elisabetta testamentary executrices; his son and sole heir, Telesforo, was 16 when Antonio died. The Cairo British Consular Court probate says that the executrices and their guarantor (Giovanni Quintana, husband of their sister Marianna) were living there, probably attending to Antonio in his last days. Returning to Malta, they brought up Telesforo very well:  his marriage certificate (to Elena Boscovich, Cairo, 1876) and death certificate (Alexandria, 1898) state he was an architect.

Of Telesforo’s four children, Aida and Nelson died single (1936 and 1922); Yone (married to Emile Chalhoub, mother of two daughters: Fernande – married Pepilone – and Germaine) and Mahrousa (single) died in England, in 1973, and 1970 respectively. The “yellowed family history sheet” mentioned in the article on Anton (The Sunday Times of Malta, July 14, 2016) does say “...later, Telesforo joined the establishment”; that extremely particular name, however went unnoticed. Merely three generations, and contact was lost; Antonio’s descendants, it seems, inherited his elusiveness.

Elusiveness isn’t alone in making Antonio enigmatic. In two watercolours of the Castlereagh journey, Antonio situates a faceless subject. Encampment near Hebron, painted on June 13, 1842, features Antonio, golden haired, in white trousers, wide-brimmed shading hat, centre-vent jacket with large rear pockets with flaps, painting his patron, Castlereagh. In Tomb of the Virgin, Jeru­salem, painted seven days later, the faceless subject standing outside the famous chapel is identical in everything, ensuring we know he is Antonio.

Matryoshka-like, the Hebron breeds questions breeding others. Is its subject Castlereagh? Antonio? The landscape? Painting itself? Unseen mirrors cannot enable a rear view: as it is, therefore, the painting suggests another artist painting. Where would he be, however? Standing behind the painted artist? Behind us, the viewers? Does another watercolour exist, therefore, Antonio-less? Paintings present something, but Antonio screens his sheet; furthermore, what he lets us see is blank.

The simple Jerusalem vibrates with undercurrents: an ominous wall overcasts it. The chapel echoes Sant Francesc church in Maón, where Antonio lived his childhood and youth. A low, sloping wall connects the two men, both holding walking-sticks. The friar, emerging from the earth, evokes doomsday. Antonio’s second name was Georg, as his father’s brother, who was a Franciscan. Their eyes (perhaps) meet. Very often artists model for their own subjects in action; here, however, the subject is immobile – enigmatically so: deadpan, static... sphinx-like.

Lest this be terribly misunderstood: these two paintings hardly qualify as self-portraits; even less are they great art. They function like photographs – not as Antonio would handle photography years later, however, but like today’s cell-phone photographs: ‘private’ records one makes for oneself, blithely presenting the self in complex contexts, which somehow enable self-reflection.

Hebron differs from its Jerusalem ‘sequel’. It reveals an irreverent, witty artist playing postmodern games – in 1842. Its very particular context will be discussed in another article, where we shall consider two works by John Frederick Lewis (1804-1876).

Both artists first went to Cairo in 1841, it seems, Lewis settling there for 10 years. In 1845 Antonio did likewise, though his wanderlust kept him travelling practically throughout his life.

One of the two paintings by Lewis is a portrait of Antonio, unknown in art circles until September 2015 when I found it recorded in a practically unknown book published in 1903. Sadly, it has since been lost, it is said.

The second Lewis painting is his famous A Frank Encampment (now at Yale University), representing the Sinai desert campsite of Castlereagh’s 1842 12-month journey to Damascus, which Antonio recorded in hundreds of fine watercolours and sepia washes. John Ruskin ranked Lewis’s superb watercolour “amongst the most wonderful pictures in the world”. In 1862 Lewis made a smaller ‘repeat’ of it in oils, which in a 2010 Sotheby’s auction sold for €1,400,000.

The intriguing background those two watercolours share – Lewis’s Encampment and Antonio’s Hebron – will feature in the second article on Antonio, which will be dedicated to his art, particularly his vast travel journeys on horses, camels and ships, a conservative estimate of which suggests covered some 100,000 kilometres, along the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa and the Near East.

I am encouraged by readers’ response to my appeal for information on Schranz works of art that may be lost, damaged or perhaps unrecognised.

Dominic Cutajar, former curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, says of an Antonio Schranz portfolio of watercolours and drawings he once was shown:

“They were overwhelming stage-sets”, superbly unleashing “forces of nature – turbulent seas, sandstorms – which show Antonio was a full-blown Romantic. I emphasise his Romantic vocation, particularly as in 19th century Maltese art Antonio emerges as the sole authentic Romantic artist.”

Readers who may have seen the portfolio, or who own it, or part of it, are kindly requested to e-mail Heritage Malta on schranz@heritagemalta.org.