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Lot Essay
In 1870, while living in London as a refugee from the Franco-Prussian War, Gérôme painted the first in what would become one of his most commercially successful subjects, the Arab woman at her bath (fig. 1). The inspiration for this initial hammam scene may be credited in part to the London merchant Henry James Turner (1832-1909), to whom the work was given after its completion in Paris a short time later.
Gérôme’s own travels would also have provided a compelling source of inspiration for this and later paintings in the bath series. During the 1870s, he visited Istanbul three times, compiling sketches, photographs, and souvenirs that would inform his Orientalist works. This productive period included visits to several of the area’s most important historic sites, including the famous baths at Bursa, built in the 16th century by the renowned Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan (1488/90-1588), and the likely setting for the present painting.
Following Islamic custom and respecting women's privacy, Gérôme would only have entered the baths on designated Men's Days. Nevertheless, composing these works was not a simple matter, nor for the faint of heart: 'I was taken by the architecture,' Gérôme recalled of his visit to the baths, '. . . and they certainly offered a chance to study nudes. It wasn’t just a question of going to see what was going on inside, and of replacing [men with women], I had to have a sketch of this interior; and since the temperature inside was rather high, I didn’t hesitate to sketch in the simple apparel of a beauty just aroused from her sleep that is, in the buff. Sitting on my tripod, my paint box on my knees, my palette in my hand, I was a little grotesque, but you have to know how to adapt yourself as necessary. I had the idea of painting my portrait in this costume, but I dropped it, fearing that my image (dal vero) might get me too much attraction and launch me in a career as a Don Juan,' (related by Frédéric Masson, 'J.L. Gérôme. Notes et fragments des souvenirs inédits du maître,' Les Arts, 1902, p 30).
In 1885, Gérôme produced the most elaborate of the bath scenes, La Grande piscine à Brusa (fig. 2), which was exhibited in the Paris Salon that year to great acclaim. One vignette within that work recalls the subject here (fig. 3).
In this, the earlier version of the scene and perhaps its inspiration, six Circassian or fair-skinned women bathe in an octagon-shaped pool, an attendant robed in blue in the background at their service. A red-haired woman seated outside the pool on the right, her back to the viewer, is echoed in her posture by a hookah with a red and winding hose. She converses with a blonde woman standing to her upper thighs in the water, who looks at her with cocked head and sidelong gaze. In the foreground, the head and shoulder of another, this time brunette, bather is witnessed from the back, and behind this communicating threesome are the remaining trio of bathing women. They all strike various poses outside the pool, one covered, and two exposed to their lower waist. Two of the women sit and converse on a low bench; the third is stretched out, belly down, along the ground, her head propped up by her encircling hands. (Gérôme’s fascination with the contortions of the human body was well known by this time; later compositions often feature his models in unusual poses, to both challenge and provide an opportunity for the artist to show off his mastery of anatomy.) She gazes somewhat wistfully at the women in front of her, intent on what they are saying.
The network of gazes that circulates throughout this composition is a hallmark of the artist; it creates a sense of intimacy within the work, as each figure, whether turned away or not, is visually connected to and acknowledged by someone else. Also characteristic is Gérôme’s ability to render raking light, particularly across the soft palette of a woman’s skin, and to combine such calculated technique with subtle human narrative.
The fluency of Gérôme’s composition here and throughout his mature oeuvre well disguises his love of bricolage. Accurate architectural renderings of the Bursa baths derive from on-site sketches and from photographs, some obtained from professional studios in Istanbul, such as that of the Abdullah Frères. These meet seamlessly with the imagined activities of the female bathers, who go about their daily ritual without self-consciousness or - and somewhat uncharacteristically for this genre - an erotic gloss.
The subject of the Turkish bath was becoming common in 19th-century art; Delacroix and Chassériau had already taken up the theme, and Ingres, in 1862, produced his enormously influential peep-hole view of bathing harem women (fig. 4). Far removed from such lascivious scenes of European fantasy and from the monumental composition that it would soon itself become, Gérôme’s portrayal of the bath has here been pared down to its bare essentials.
A letter of authentication from Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D. accompanies this painting, and the work will be included in her revision to the Jean-Léon Gérôme catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation. We are grateful to Dr. Weeks for her contribution of this catalogue note.
Gérôme’s own travels would also have provided a compelling source of inspiration for this and later paintings in the bath series. During the 1870s, he visited Istanbul three times, compiling sketches, photographs, and souvenirs that would inform his Orientalist works. This productive period included visits to several of the area’s most important historic sites, including the famous baths at Bursa, built in the 16th century by the renowned Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan (1488/90-1588), and the likely setting for the present painting.
Following Islamic custom and respecting women's privacy, Gérôme would only have entered the baths on designated Men's Days. Nevertheless, composing these works was not a simple matter, nor for the faint of heart: 'I was taken by the architecture,' Gérôme recalled of his visit to the baths, '. . . and they certainly offered a chance to study nudes. It wasn’t just a question of going to see what was going on inside, and of replacing [men with women], I had to have a sketch of this interior; and since the temperature inside was rather high, I didn’t hesitate to sketch in the simple apparel of a beauty just aroused from her sleep that is, in the buff. Sitting on my tripod, my paint box on my knees, my palette in my hand, I was a little grotesque, but you have to know how to adapt yourself as necessary. I had the idea of painting my portrait in this costume, but I dropped it, fearing that my image (dal vero) might get me too much attraction and launch me in a career as a Don Juan,' (related by Frédéric Masson, 'J.L. Gérôme. Notes et fragments des souvenirs inédits du maître,' Les Arts, 1902, p 30).
In 1885, Gérôme produced the most elaborate of the bath scenes, La Grande piscine à Brusa (fig. 2), which was exhibited in the Paris Salon that year to great acclaim. One vignette within that work recalls the subject here (fig. 3).
In this, the earlier version of the scene and perhaps its inspiration, six Circassian or fair-skinned women bathe in an octagon-shaped pool, an attendant robed in blue in the background at their service. A red-haired woman seated outside the pool on the right, her back to the viewer, is echoed in her posture by a hookah with a red and winding hose. She converses with a blonde woman standing to her upper thighs in the water, who looks at her with cocked head and sidelong gaze. In the foreground, the head and shoulder of another, this time brunette, bather is witnessed from the back, and behind this communicating threesome are the remaining trio of bathing women. They all strike various poses outside the pool, one covered, and two exposed to their lower waist. Two of the women sit and converse on a low bench; the third is stretched out, belly down, along the ground, her head propped up by her encircling hands. (Gérôme’s fascination with the contortions of the human body was well known by this time; later compositions often feature his models in unusual poses, to both challenge and provide an opportunity for the artist to show off his mastery of anatomy.) She gazes somewhat wistfully at the women in front of her, intent on what they are saying.
The network of gazes that circulates throughout this composition is a hallmark of the artist; it creates a sense of intimacy within the work, as each figure, whether turned away or not, is visually connected to and acknowledged by someone else. Also characteristic is Gérôme’s ability to render raking light, particularly across the soft palette of a woman’s skin, and to combine such calculated technique with subtle human narrative.
The fluency of Gérôme’s composition here and throughout his mature oeuvre well disguises his love of bricolage. Accurate architectural renderings of the Bursa baths derive from on-site sketches and from photographs, some obtained from professional studios in Istanbul, such as that of the Abdullah Frères. These meet seamlessly with the imagined activities of the female bathers, who go about their daily ritual without self-consciousness or - and somewhat uncharacteristically for this genre - an erotic gloss.
The subject of the Turkish bath was becoming common in 19th-century art; Delacroix and Chassériau had already taken up the theme, and Ingres, in 1862, produced his enormously influential peep-hole view of bathing harem women (fig. 4). Far removed from such lascivious scenes of European fantasy and from the monumental composition that it would soon itself become, Gérôme’s portrayal of the bath has here been pared down to its bare essentials.
A letter of authentication from Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D. accompanies this painting, and the work will be included in her revision to the Jean-Léon Gérôme catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation. We are grateful to Dr. Weeks for her contribution of this catalogue note.