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Lot Essay
The hunting procession was a theme treated often by Ernst (see fig. 1), who used this template to juxtapose myriad Oriental figures into an ensemble composed purely for dramatic visual effect. In this respect the present work is quite different to the interior works (see lot 26) which were based on the artist's own first hand knowledge of North African culture.
Each individual figure and animal is modelled with painstaking accuracy and attention to detail. The fabrics, weapons, instruments and other props used to set the scene would all have been recreated from Ernst's extensive collection of cultural artefacts, but the composition is purely imagined: the desert setting bears little resemblance to a tiger habitat, while the various figures combine elements of North Africa, India and Palestine.
Ernst's combination of almost photographic precision with invented compositions played to the commercial demands of an audience for whom Orientalist art was often a form of escapism -- a dramatic stage in which elements of the real were combined into a stage set that played into 19th century preconceptions of an exotic and unknown world.
Each individual figure and animal is modelled with painstaking accuracy and attention to detail. The fabrics, weapons, instruments and other props used to set the scene would all have been recreated from Ernst's extensive collection of cultural artefacts, but the composition is purely imagined: the desert setting bears little resemblance to a tiger habitat, while the various figures combine elements of North Africa, India and Palestine.
Ernst's combination of almost photographic precision with invented compositions played to the commercial demands of an audience for whom Orientalist art was often a form of escapism -- a dramatic stage in which elements of the real were combined into a stage set that played into 19th century preconceptions of an exotic and unknown world.