Arnaut fumant

The Arnauts were Albanians, but usually the term was used to mean an Albanian soldier, an irregular soldier in the Turkish army. They were identified by their pleated skirts, somewhat of a national Albanian costume. After Egypt became independent from Turkey, there were evidently plenty of them in Cairo who earned a living by various jobs: as guards, animal keepers, and models for foreign painters.

Gérôme's first oriental costume picture was of an Arnaut in bright sunlight with a rifle on his shoulder, leading a corvé of recruits across the desert, perhaps for service in the army or for work on the Suez canal. It is carefully painted, with strong plein air effects -- particularly complex on the Arnaut's skirt; for this difficult effect, Gérôme worked from a photograph of the skirt shot on a sunlit roof, perhaps that of his own house.

Gérôme's most important teacher was Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), who was a supreme master of the problems of stance, posture, placement and contrapposto. Delaroche taught Gérôme how to see and project the frame and muscles under the skin and clothing of figures to show the tensions of the inner balance that supported a pose. These techniques are used in the present painting, where the Arnaut’s posture shows a strong powerful physique visible under layers of silk, sitting in a relaxed fashion. The sunlight breaking through the chinks of the latticed window in the background plays through the silk of the sitter’s pleated skirts, called fustanella, which are an element of Albanian national costume. To all great Orientalist artists, surroundings were not mere backdrops, but celebrated interiors providing a chance to show the interplay of light within attractive environments (fig. 1). Indeed this work presents a masterful depiction of the bright light working its way through the latticed window with a controlled elegance of Gérôme’s hand. From the 1870s single figures in Oriental costumes and settings became a steady part of Gérôme's production, many with Arnauts and their fancy skirts. Evert Shinn said of this painting: "Another of M. Gérôme's favourite white-petticoated Arnauts is here smoking in the corner of his café, buried in that idle reverie so dear to the Hooreyehs, who shall welcome him into Paradise." The Arnaut has drawn from the hookah, which appears in other works by Gérôme, suggesting this is a studio prop brought back to Paris from one of Gérôme’s travels.