4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2009.

Arab Falconer

Artist Eugène Fromentin (French, 1820-1876)

CultureFrench

Date1863

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions42 x 27 3/4 in. (106.7 x 70.5 cm)
Overall, Frame: 49 1/4 x 35 x 3 in. (125.1 x 88.9 x 7.6 cm)

InscribedSigned lower left: Eug. Fromentin

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.648

Collections

European Art before 1945

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 115-2 - Wonderstudio

DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting. A man on a galloping horse is the center of the canvas. Three falcons, one on the man's head, one in his hand, and another flying above, but connected by a string, forms a diagonal line from the top right corner to the center of the canvas.

Label TextEugène Fromentin French, 1820–1876 Arab Falconer, 1863 Oil on canvas With a falcon in his raised arm, this Arab plainsman is a virtual extension of his muscled steed. Many Romantic artists of the day viewed Arab nomads as “noble savages” whose lives were tied to the rhythms of the natural world and free of the corruption of modern civilization. Following Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (1798-99), the French public became fascinated with the Islamic east, spinning fantasies about its sensuous mysteries and untamed naturalism. Eugène Fromentin endorsed this Orientalist view, portraying the hunter as a creature completely at one with his wild steed and birds of prey. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.648 ProvenanceLepel-Cointet Collection, Paris, 1877; Lepel-Cointet sale, Paris, 1881; B. Wall Collection, Providence, RI, 1889; David V. Powers, New York, 1898; Durand-Ruel, New York; Samuel Untermeyer, New York; Baron Casil Von Doorn, New York; Parke-Bernet, May 16-17, 1958 (lot 297); Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to The Chrysler Museum, 1971. Exhibition HistorySalon, Paris, 1863. (Exhib. cat. no. 735). "Exposition posthume," Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1877. (Exhib. cat. no. 32). "Columbia Exposition," Chicago, 1893. "National Exhibition of Foreign Artists," New York, 1904. "The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse, European Painters in North Africa and the Near East," Royal Academy of Arts, London, March 24 - May 27, 1984 and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., July 1 - Oct. 28, 1984. "Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. "Reopening of the Joan P. Brock Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Opening in March of 2008. Published ReferencesMary Anne Stevens, ed. _The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse, European Painters in North Africa and the Near East_. London: Royal Academy of Arts in association with Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1984: 132-133, no. 22. Mary Anne Stevens, ed. _The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse, the Allure of North Africa and the Near East_ Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art in association with Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1984: 70, 134-135, no. 22. Jefferson C. Harrison. "Nineteenth-Century French Art - Part I," _The Chrysler Museum Gallery Guide_. Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum. 1985. No. 14. James Thompson and Barbara Wright. _Les Orientalistes: La Vie et l'Oeuvre d'Eugene Fromentin_. Vol. 6. Paris: ACR. 1987: 194-7, 205-207. Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_. The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA, 1991. 112, #88. Judith Forbis and Gulsun Sherif. _The Abbas Pasha Manuscript and Horses and Horsemen of Arabia and Egypt During the Time of Abbas Pasha 1800-1860_. Mena, AR: Ansata Publications. 1993. 258. Patrick Shaw Cable, "From North Africa to the Black Sea: Nineteenth-Century French Orientalist Drawings," _Cleveland Studies in the History of Art_ 7 (2002, The Cleveland Museum of Art): 113--115, 119. Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, _Nineteenth-Century European Art_ (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 2003), 272. Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, _Nineteenth-Century European Art, 2nd Edition_ (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Publishers, 2006), 282. Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, _Nineteenth-Century European Art_, (Upper Saddle Ridge, NJ: Pearson Education, 2011), 280, fig. 12-16. Roger Benjamin, _Biskra: Sortilèges d'une Oasi_, exh. cat., Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France, 2017, p. 87. Shalon Parker, _Painting the Prehistoric Body in Late Nineteenth-Century France_ (Lanham, MD: University of Delaware Press, 2019) fig. 1.3.