A successful raid

Giulio Rosati was deeply attracted to the vogue in Orientalist painting and dedicated himself almost exclusively to this fascinating genre. Rosati never visited the Middle East, and it is indeed thought that he never travelled abroad; he clearly invented scenes drawing inspiration from literature and the work of his contemporaries. He used photographs, engravings and objects that were available to him to construct authentic depictions of life in the East. The Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal returned from his travels to Granada and Seville with a number of Islamic objects; his paintings, which were subsequently exhibited in Rome in the 1860s where they caused a sensation, certainly inspired Rosati.

In the present work Rosati moves away from the harems and city markets for which he is best recognised and explores the inhospitable and dangerous desert. We see a group of warriors at full gallop charging through the landscape with their captured female hostage. The depiction of such dynamic movement and celebration of the masculine prowess of these warriors shows the influence of Eugène Fromentin, Eugène Delacroix and Adolf Schreyer.