La porte de la mosquée El-Hasanein au Caire où furent exposées la tête des beys immolés par Salek-Kachef (The Doorway to the Mosque El Assaneyn in Cairo where the heads of the Rebel Beys were exposed by Salek-Kachef)

Details

Jean-Leon Gerome (French, 1824-1904)
La porte de la mosquée El-Hasanein au Caire où furent exposées la tête des beys immolés par Salek-Kachef (The Doorway to the Mosque El Assaneyn in Cairo where the heads of the Rebel Beys were exposed by Salek-Kachef)
signed 'J. L. Gerome' (centre left)
oil on panel
21¼ x 17¼ in. (54 x 43.8 cm.)
Painted in 1866

Provenance

William H. Stewart sale; American Art Galleries, New York, 3-4 February 1898, lot 39.
F. Schnittjer and Son, Parke-Bernet, New York, 10 February 1943, lot 345.
Louis Kaplan sale; Parke-Bernet, New York, 8-11 March 1944, lot 547.
Cesareo Sanz, 1944.
Mrs. E Sugarman sale; Parke-Bernet, New York, 21 September 1945, lot 120.
Anon. sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 7 October 1977, lot 220.
The Forbes Magazine Collection of Orientalist Paintings; Christie's, New York, 14 October 1993, lot 260.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

C. Blanc, 'Salon de 1866', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XX, June 1866, p. 517.
M. du Camp, Les Beaux-Arts à l'Exposition Universelle et aux Salons de 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, et 1867, Paris, 1867, pp. 204-5.
F. F. Hering, The Life and Works of Jean Leon Gérôme, New York, 1892, pp. 113-5, 118.
E. Strahan, Gérôme: A Collection of the Works of J. L. Gérôme in One Hundred Photogravures, New York, 1881.
M. S. Forbes, 'An Artist's Revenge', Forbes, 9 January 1978, p. 28.
J. Landrigan, 'The Forbes Magazine at the Palais Mendoub, Tangier', Antiques, June 1982, p. 1386 (illustrated pl. V).
G. M. Ackerman, The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, London, 1986, p. 218, no. 161 (illustrated pp. 64 and 219).
G. M. Ackerman, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Monographie révisée catalogue raisonné mis à jour, Paris, 2000, p. 64, no. 161 (illustrated).

Exhibited

Paris, Salon, 1866, no. 801.
Paris, Exposition Universelle, 1867.
New York, Grey Art Gallery, Charles Gleyre (1806-1874), 13 February-27 March 1980.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Gérôme exhibited this work together with Cleopatra before Caesar at the Salon of 1866, and it originally belonged to the prominent American collector, William H. Stewart. At first glance it is a gruesome scene showing an assemblage of severed heads of enemies to the portals of the city. But East meets West in this macabre setting as it has been suggested that these dangling heads may portray some of Gérôme's best Parisian critics.

Gérôme made a preparatory drawing which included three guards standing at the right (The Forbes Magazine Collection of Orientalist Paintings, Drawings, Watercolours and Sculpture, Christie's, New York, 14 October 1993, lot 261), and a painting showing the standing guard, dressed in a red garment, which he dedicated to his student Jean Richard Goubie (Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 25 November 1981, lot 35).

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