Study of a whippet

A very similar dog appears in Une plaisanterie one of the artist’s masterpieces in a private collection (fig. 1; Masterpieces of Orientalist Art, op. cit., p. 277). In the painting Gérôme portrays the moment at which a young Arnaut - an Albanian soldier in the Ottoman army - sits with his whippet and playfully blows a stream of smoke at the dog’s nose. Gérôme was fond of dogs and the whippet could have been one of his own pets, as it appears in several paintings and in many other drawings.

The drawing will be included in the forthcoming revised catalogue raisonné of Jean-Léon Gérôme's work by Dr. Emily Weeks.

Fig. 1. Jean-Léon Gérôme. Une plaisanterie. Private collection.