The person to whom this work is inscribed is Ali Pasha, 1804-1871, a Turkish statesman, a member of the Tanzimat reformers, and often an ambassador. As Minister of the Exterior, he was the Plenipotentiary of the Turkish delegation at the Congress of Paris in 1856. The finished version of the Duel after the Ball (now at the Musée Condé in Chantilly) was exhibited at the Salon of 1857. Gérôme may have sold this work to the important visitor before the success of the piece at the Salon in 1857 or on a later visit of Ali Pasha to Paris. It was a common practice for Gérôme to make a small preparatory oil sketch for each composition. When he was finished, he often finished one figure or the other, leaving the rest in a sketchy stage, and inscribed it to a friend, or sometimes to a client.

There are three finished versions of the subject (the one in Chantilly, another in St. Petersburg, and a third in Baltimore, Maryland). Each is slightly slicker than the other. This present work, however, is extraordinarily fresh. The main group is painted with a liveliness in every face and gesture, with a resilience in the sagging body of Pierrot that is remarkable and only slightly equalled in the Chantilly version. The clarity in the grouping around Pierrot, although sketchily painted and actually 'unfinished', is masterful. The rapier on the ground and the abandoned robe in the centre are placed and painted with great authority. Even in this sketch, Gérôme manages the narrative well.

This is most likely the oil sketch that Gérôme painted when working out his composition. There is only one difficulty. An early report of the Chantilly version (London, Athaneum, January 1858) mentions a background figure of 'a coachman throwing up his hands in horror'. It was painted out, but early in this century Moreau-Vauthier (The Technique of Painting, London, 1912) noticed that the 'silhouette of an intrusive figure has made its appearance' in the first, Chantilly, version. If this figure were part of the original conception, one would expect to find a pentimento of the coachman somewhere in this sketch.

The Duel after the Ball is one of Gérôme's most popular pictures, in his lifetime and ever since. Not only did he make at least five versions of the subject, but numerous copies were made and probably still are being made by others. Looking at this delicately painted yet tautly constructed version gets us close to the vitality of the first conception, a vitality that guaranteed its popularity.

We are grateful to Gerald M. Ackerman for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.