Jean-leon Gerome, 'at Prayer' - SOLD

Project Details

Jean-leon Gerome, ‘at Prayer’ – SOLD

Signed: J. L. Gérôme upper right on the beam – Oil on Canvas 23 x 34 cm

Born in France, Gérôme was one of the most famous painters in the world in the second half of the 19th century. In the early stages of his career he painted scenes of ancient Greece and Rome.

In 1856 He visited Egypt for the first time, spending four months. He stayed in a house lent to him by French-born Egyptian commander Suleyman Pasha al-Faransawi (d. 1860). He would go on to visit Turkey, Egypt, Palastine, Greece, Algiers in later years.

His work is characterized by high finish, and extreme attention to detail. This can even be observed in his rendering of Arabic calligraphy in his paintings, something that is neglected by other orientalist painters.

Gérôme was married to Marie Goupil (1842-1912), the daughter of an influential dealer who distributed engravings of his paintings, and facilitated their sale to collectors, especially in the United States. This is the reason so many of Gérôme’s paintings, including the present one, are provenance to the USA.

In 1864 Gérôme was invited by the French government to be one of the teachers at the newly opened Paris School of Fine Arts. He worked there as a professor for nearly forty years. He had approximately two thousand students, a number of which also became orientalists. These include Albert Aublet, Eugene Girardet, Jean Lecomte du Nouy, Auguste Emile Pinchart, Henri Rousseau, Theodore Ralli, Arthur Frederick Bridgman, Edwin Lord Weeks, as well as the Turkish painters Osman Hamdy and Halil Pasha.

Another Cairo mosque interior by Gérôme, the Mosque of Amr, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Please see Gerald M. Ackerman, Jean-Leon Gerome, ACR, Paris, 2000, col. pl. p. 105 (cat. no. 200). Interestingly, this painting has similar columns with Corinthian capitals to our painting, as well as criss-cross beams.

Published:
Gerald M. Ackerman, The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme , London, 1986, p. 294, no. 511, p. 295; Gerald M. Ackerman, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Monographie révisée, Catalogue raisonné mis à jour , Paris, 2000, p. 366, no. 511, p. 367.

Provenance:

Lasslow (sale: Parke-Bernet, New York, February 17, 1944, lot 12)
Henry Jordan (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired in Chicago after 1945

Categories: Notable Sales
Credits: Henry Jordan

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Jean-leon Gerome, ‘at Prayer’ – SOLD

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