The Story of Africa: Theodore of Ethiopia (Original)

Artist: Angus McBride
Medium: Gouache on Board
Size: 17" x 6" (420mm x 140mm)
Date: 1968
Code: McBrideAMarchLL

This is the unique original Gouache painting by Angus McBride.

General Napier achieved his greatest fame as an army officer when he led the expedition of 1868 against Emperor Tewodros II (Emperor Theodore) of Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian ruler was holding a number of Protestant missionaries hostage in his mountain capital of Magdala, as well as two British diplomats who had unsuccessfully attempted to free them.

After months of planning and other preparations, the advance guard of engineers landed at Zula on the Red Sea to construct a port on 30 October 1867; Napier himself arrived in Zula on 2 January 1868, and on 25 January led his troops south in the Ethiopian highlands.

• Artist Biography
  Angus McBride (1931 - 2007; UK & South Africa)
  Angus McBride is one of the world's most respected historical and fantasy illustrators, and contributed to numerous books, magazines and articles, including the classic Look & Learn, JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, and more than 70 Osprey titles in the past three decades. Born in 1931 of Highland parents, but orphaned as a child, he was educated at Canterbury Cathedral Choir School. He worked in advertising agencies from 1947, and after National Service, emigrated to South Africa where he lived for several years, before relocating to Ireland before his sad demise in 2007.