Jean-Léon Gérôme, French, 1824-1904
Title: The Gulf of Aqaba
Date: c.1897
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
60 x 81 cm
Signed: lower left: J.L. Gerome
Credit Line: Presented, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, 1953
Object Number: NGI.1256
Exhibition HistoryFrench 19th and 20th Century Paintings from the National Gallery of Ireland: Corot to Picasso, Daimaru Museum, Tokyo, 5 September-17 September 1996; Daimaru Museum, Kyoto, 10 October-22 October 1996; Kawaguchiko Museum of Art, Yamanashi, 26 October-2 December 1996; Daimaru Museum, Umeda,Osaka, 22 January-9 February 1997; Aomori Municpal Gallery of Art, Aomori, 2 April-20 April 1997
Chester Beatty: The Paintings, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, 7 September 2012 - 31 August 2013; The Hunt Museum, Limerick, 1 February - 30 March 2014
Chester Beatty: The Paintings, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, 7 September 2012 - 31 August 2013; The Hunt Museum, Limerick, 1 February - 30 March 2014
Label TextGérôme painted this scene late in his career. It depicts a long line of herdsmen and figures on camelback journeying along the Gulf of Aqaba. In the foreground, a man dressed in white sits on a donkey, while its foal follows behind. Lost in thought, he absentmindedly dangles a slipper from one foot. Gérôme visited the coastline of Aqaba in 1867 and was fascinated by its desolate landscape, blue sea, and skies. He based this painting on some of the many sketches and photographs that he made on that trip.