Artist: Jean Léone Gérôme
Title: The Last Judgement Day/ le jour du jugement dernier
Signed:
Medium:
Size:
French Orientalist
Orientalist Paintings and Commentary on Orientalist Art Artists incl Jean Leone Gerome, Ludwig Deutsch, Frederich Arthur Bridgeman, etc.
King Candaules
Portrait of a Lady
Egyptian Recruits Crossing the Desert
The Pyrrhic Dance
This composition is after a preparatory drawing by Gérôme that was sold at Christie's, New York, May 22, 1997, entitled Venus playing with Putti by the Statue of Cupid. The drawing is lightly squared for transfer in black lead, and the figures are the same size as in the painting. There are differences between the preparatory drawing and the painting, the statue of Cupid and a decorated staff on the ground have been omitted in the oil, and the figure on the ground behind the legs of the main group is new. However, the central group of three figures is almost exactly the same as in the drawing.
Gérôme has signed his picture in italics, his practice in the fifties when signing oil sketches; his finished works were signed with Roman capitals. This painting may then be a preliminary oil sketch for a larger version of the subject not yet recovered, or perhaps never painted.
Please note than in Gerald Ackerman's revised monograph, (Jean-Léon Gérôme, monographe révisée, Catalogue raisonné mis à jour, Paris, 2000, p. 218, no. 33.5, illustrated p. 219) this work is reattributed to Studio of Gerome. Although a French translation of the above catalogue note also appears in his 2000 monograph, Mr. Ackerman now adds that the present work may be an esquisse for a larger work not yet discovered or perhaps never realized. He also feels that studio members may have been involved in the present work's execution as Mr. Ackerman considers the quality of the painting to be less than that of the drawing.
Source Prof. Gerald Ackerman Sotheby catalogue for the February 9, 1999 (lot 92)





The Snake Charmer
The Snake Charmer focuses on a naked boy handling a python while an old man plays a fipple flute. Watching intently is a group of mercenaries differentiated by the distinctive costumes of their tribes, by ornaments, and by weapons. Such erotic and exotic imagery of Near Eastern subjects was very popular in the late nineteenth century. Despite the nearly photographic realism employed by Gérome, the painting is a pastiche of Egyptian, Turkish, and Indian elements that have no basis in reality.
Source: The Clark Institute
Bashi-Bazouk Singing
Bacchante and Cupid
Sarah Bernhardt
Bust of Julius Ceasar
The Ballplayer
The Arab and his Steed
The Pipelighter
Beware the Dog
Saïs and his Donkey
Julius Cesar among his Legionnaires