Head of a Bearded Man

Signed ?
Head of a Bearded Man
red chalk on paper/
17.4 x 16 cm (sheet)
2007 at Fine Arts Museum in San Fransisco
French Orientalist

Arnout Chief Praying Figure Study

Signed ?
Figure Study for the painting, "La Priere Chez un Chef Arnout.", 1857
graphite on off-white wove
35.7 x 22.8 cm (image)
2007 at Fine Art Museum San Fransisco
French Orientalist

Moorish Bath

signed lower left Jean Leone Gerome, 1890
Moorish Bath, circa 1890
oil on canvas/huile sur toile
29 x 23.5 in (73.6 x 32.5 cm)
2007 at Palace of Legion of Honor in San Fransisco
French Orientalist

Biography

Artist: Jean Leone Gerome
Title: Self-Portrait/Autoportait
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 40.6x30.5cm
Location: 2000 Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen

Born May 10, 1824(1824-05-10)in Vesoul (Haute-Saône), France
Died January 10, 1904 (aged 79)in Paris, France
Nationality French
Field Painting, Sculpture
Training Paul Delaroche, Charles Gleyre
Movement Orientalism

1846 The Cock Fight
1848 Anacréon, Bacchus et l'Amour
1851 Young Nymph teased by Putti
1855 Century of Augustus Birth of Christ 1855
1857 Camels at Trough
1857 Figure Study for La Priere ches un chef
1857 Egyptian Recruits Crossing the Desert
1859 Guard of the Harem
1860 Diogenes
1860 Head of a Negro Woman from Hedjaz
1861 Phryne before Areopagus
1861 The Prisoner
1861 Socrates Seeking Alcibiades
1865 Prayer on the Rooftops of Cairo
1865 Egyptian Smoker
1865 Bust of Julius Ceasar
1865 Arnaut Smoking
1865 Julius Cesar among his Legionaires
1866 Dance of the Amlmeh
1866 The Slave Market
1866 Cleopatra before Caesar
1866 Portrait of a Lady
1868 Bashi Bazouk Singing
1869 Bashi Bazouk
1869 Pelt Merchant of Cairo
1870 The Snake Charmer
1870 Public Prayer in Mosque of Amr
1870 Arabs Crossing the Desert
1871 Arnaut of Cairo
1872 Bisharin Warrior
1872 Thumbs Down
1872 Arab and his Steed
1873 Almeh with Pipe
1873 Arab Girl with Waterpipe
1874 Markos Botsaris
1875 An Arab and his Dogs
1876 Veiled Circassian Beauty
1876 Field of Rest Cmetary of Green Mosque
1876 Standard Bearer
1877 Egyptian Girl
1878 Reception of Grand Conde
1879 Muezzins Call to Prayer
1879 Arnaut and his Dogs
1880 A Japanese Imploring a Divinity
1881 Beware of the Dog
1881 Arab Purchasing a Bridle
1881 After the Bath
1882 An Almeh
1882 Grief of the Pasha
1883 Christian Martyre's Last Prayer
1886 Self Portrait
1887 Carpet Merchants
1889 Bather
1889 Love the Conqueror
1889 Harem Bath
1889 Bathsheba 1889
1889 Woman at Bath
1890 Pygmalion
1890 Pygmalion and Galatea
1890 MoorishBath
1891 Sorrow Statue
1895 Arab Encampment at Sunrise
1895 Sarah Bernhardt Bust
1897 Woman of Cairo at her door
1897 Bacchante and Cupid Statue
1898 Sais and his Donkey
1898 The Pipe Lighter
1899 The Whirling Dervish
1902 The Ball Player
1904 Corinth Statue
? Head of a Bearded Man
? Head of a Horse in Profile
? Jean Léon Gérôme in his Studio
? Madame le la Pagerie
? Night
? Prayer in the Desert
? The Smoker
? Seraglio
? Sketch for the Excursion of the Harem
? Colossus of Memnon
? Gray Cardinal
? Reception of the Siamese Ambassador...
Year? king Candaules
? Tomb of the Sultan
? Landscape
? Lion Sketch
? Lion
? Tiger on the Watch
? Slave Auction
? Head of a Peasant from the Roman Countryside
? Mufti Reading in his Prayer Stool
Year? Pyrrhic Dance
Year? Harem in the Kiosk, Constantinople
Year? The Last Judgement Day
Year? View of Paestum
Year? Plain of Thebes, Upper Egypt

Pygmalion

Working in Marble

Artist: Jean Leon Gerome
Title: Pygmalion or Working in Marble 1890
Signed lower left on portfolio cover
Medium: Oil on canvas/huile sur toile
Size: 18.75 x 15.75 in (50.5 x 39.5 cm)
Location: Dahesh Museum, New York
French Orientalist

Gérôme's choice of referencing Pygmalion is an appropriate one for an artist of the academy. These artists were striving for accuracy so real that the sculpture itself might look alive. Academic art did not leave room for individual interpretation of the figure like modern sculpture does. Academic sculptures judged to be the most successful were those that also appeared to be the most real. With the juxtaposition of both the model and the sculpture, only the material of the sculpture indicates which one is real and which one has been created. Their forms are identical. But in this self-portrait Gérôme is not only highlighting his work as a sculptor, but his skills as a painter as well. Though his sculptural skills seem flawless, he makes it clear using paint that one figure is a real model while one is a plaster figure.

Self-portraits like this one are an interesting topic to consider. Perhaps, for the reasons discussed above, Gérôme chose to compare himself to Pygmalion. But look around Gérôme's studio. How else is he portraying himself? Even though he is carving and molding a plaster cast, his studio is remarkably clean. He has also inserted other examples of his sculptural mastery into the painting, including the dancer with the hoop in the background, which was a model for another one of his sculptures. The bust on the shelf behind him is also another one of his sculptures, this time a portrait of the moon goddess Selene. Not only is he interested in the Greco-Roman sculptural heritage, the mask and other exotic objects placed along the back wall highlight his interest in foreign cultures.

Source Dahesh Museum Blog posted by Educator Gretchen Burch September 22, 2006

Pygmalion and Galatea

Signed lower center Jean Léone Gérôme, 1890
Pygmalian and Galatea
oil on canvas/huile sur toile
35 x 27 in (87.5 x 68.6 cm)
Signed right center 1875
French Orientalist

The story of Pygmalion and Galatea, from Wikipedia:Pygmalion was a lonely Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid he is 'not interested in women', but his statue is so realistic that he falls in love with it. He offers the statue presents and eventually prays to Aphrodite the goddess of beauty and love. Aphrodite takes pity on him and brings the statue to life. They marry and have a son, Paphos.

Eunuch Guarding a Door

Artist: Jéan Léone Gérôme
Title: Eunuch Guarding a Door 1859/ Eunuque gardent une porte
Signed and dated 'J.L. Gerome 1859'
Medium: Oil on Canvas/huile sur toile
Size: 24x15 cm
French Orientalist

Video

Bashi Bazouk

Artist:Jean Léone Gérôme
Title: Bashi Bazouk, 1869
Signed lower left 1869
Medium: oil on canvas/huile sur toile
Size: 81 x 66cm (31.75 x 26 in)
French Orientalist


My copy of this painting done in oil

This is a photo of a Bashi Bazouk

Bisharin Warrior

Bisharin-Warrior, originally uploaded by Portrait Artist - Enzie Shahmiri.

Bisharin Warrior
French Title: Bischarin, buste de guerrier (Bisharin Warrior)
Jean-Léone Gérôme (French, 1824-1904)
Signed J.L Gerome (lower left)
Oil on canvas
11 5/8 x 8 5/8 in ( 29.5 x 21.9cm)

Painted in 1872

This extraordinary portrait is one of two canvases of the same subject (different poses) ordered by the art dealer Samuel P. Avery from Gérome while he was resident in London during the siege of Paris. Gérome promised to deliver the panels once back in Paris, where he could find a proper model, This seems to indicate either that Gérome started and painted much of the work from memory, or that perhaps he just worked up the accessories and the general pose from a local model in London and then finished the work in Paris. The other panel, Arab Warrior, 1872 is larger.

The same model is depicted from the front with his head turned dramatically away; a greater array of accessories is included.

By comparison, the Bisharin Warrior, is a marvel of compositional control . Despite the seeming austerity, the work is held together by complex rhythms: an obvious over-all triangle is broken by the hand holding the sword whose diagonal slant is prepared for by the strap on the young man’s shoulder. The roundness of the rich hair is echoed by the shield, whose bosses nonetheless set up an accord with the rectangular shape of the canvas, and so it goes through the painting, where despite the seeming relaxed naturalism of the pose, every line and shape has its purpose.

The Bisharin or Bishari are a nomadic , pastoral tribe of the Eastern Desert of the Sudan. Gérome, proud of his skill as an “ethnographic painter”, displays his skill in accurately producing a racial type as well as an individual. The Bisharin are noted for their round faces, their straight noses and large eyes. In these traits they resemble the ancient Egyptians as depicted in their art. There are many fine features in this painting: The shield is excellent, the splayed fingers around the handle of the sword, and the youthful right arm. The handling of the face is quiet subtle, especially in the cheek bones and the sensuous lips.

Written by Professor Ackerman for Christie’s, Important Orientalist Paintings, 2001, P 36

Photo of Bisharin Warrior from Aswan

Pelt Merchant of Cairo

Pelt Merchant of Cairo 1869, originally uploaded by sunnybrook100.

Jean-Léone Gérôme (French, 1824-1904)
The Pelt Merchant, Cairo - Brocanteur de gloire

Signed J.L Gerome (upper right)
Oil on canvas
24 ¼ x 19 3/4in (61.5x50.2cm)

A favorite model with two familiar pieces from Gérome’s collection of accessories: in one hand a helmet (used as a prop in many paintings) and a tiger skin (the painting of fur being one of Gérome’s early specialities).

The handsome young model displays his wares to us in a Cairo street, and even great passages, like the glorious tiger skin and the incredible mesh neckpiece of the helmet fail to distract our attention from the appealing young man.

What gives the young man such authority when most of his body is covered? Gérome gives a clear view of his shoulders and his hands which describe enough of an energetic contraposto under the tiger skin to give us a strong sense of hidden body, and the integrity of the body is confirmed by diagonal uniting of his head, his hand and helmet, and his foot, setting up a rhythm of amusing juxtaposition of shapes and body parts which nonetheless give emphasize to the great head. And we must admit, the sumptuous beauty of the covering adds to the handsomeness of the man. More surprising is the sources of the pose, and the mixture of body and rich clothing, in a famous, early work by Rembrandt, Saul and David of 1630 (Frankfurt, Staedel Institute)




The pose is almost exactly the same, the coincidence of turbans fortuitous but deliberate at the same time. Many compositional devices of Rembrandt in his biblical history as taken over, as the foot-hand-head line, and the outline of the necklace around Saul’s shoulders. In 1899, Gérome was asked in a letter who his ideal painter was and he answered. “A man, notable by his love of nature, his naïveté, his sincerity, that’s Rembrandt, who because of these masterful qualities is at the same time a great poet,” and he added, as good 19th Century academic and long-time drawing master, “If he had some plastic sense, he would be absolutely without fault. As a master painter, he would be my ideal.”Not just his ideal, but his model, or the model for his model, as this borrowing shows. And as aa gentle criticism of his ideal, Gérome has tightened up all the forms – especially the drapery – that tend to spread a bit in the Rembrandt. We should not judge Gérome harshly for criticism of Rembrandt, in true academic theory no painter was perfect (perfection belonging only to god); and Rembrandt was often disliked by academics; instead, we should be pleased that Gérome’s emotional and aesthetic response to Rembrandt was in no way impeded by his academic standards.

The street is shaded, yet the general light is still strong enough to model the face and hands, to reveal the intricacy of the light absorbing patterns of the pelt, to turn an array of glints on the helmet into a sparkling display, and to make the white wall glow in reflected light. An alley to the left leads through obscurity to direct sunlight. A deftly painted vignette of a hawker loaded with jars approaches us through the shadow of a passageway. The control of values in the passage seems casual but is masterful – the space is absolutely convincing. As part of the ensemble, its warm yellows colors back up the deep oranges of the tiger skin. The warm bluish tint of the wall behind the merchant that holds everything together comes to full flower only in the patch of sky at the end of the alley. It is as if Gérome had used every one of his talents, pulled out all stops he knew, to paint this picture. Every element is decorative, sumptuous, indeed, but subordinate to the general composition and the persuasive presence of the young salesman and his glorious wares.

There are many wonderful details: the two hands with their animated fingers, the array of values on the helmet and the mesh neck covering. There are many fine passages in the work: the undulations of fur on the tiger skin, the beauty of the wall, etc. But still the alertness and strength of the young man dominates the canvas.

Gerald Ackerman, Christies Catalog Important Orientalist Paintings 2001 P. 56