The Evening Prayer, Thebes

Perlberg must have seen Gustave Guillaumet's epic canvas Evening, Prayer in the Sahara, 1863, a state purchase now housed in the Musée d'Orsay (fig. 1). The artist replicated Guillaumet's composition on a smaller scale with great exactitude, embellishing it further with the addition of the archaeological components of the two statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III which are all that survive of the ruler's mortuary temple on the left bank of the Nile at Thebes.

(fig. 1) Gustave Guillaumet, Evening Prayer in the Sahara, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo courtesy: RNM.