Eugène Fromentin
, French, 1820-1876
Title
Falcon Hunt ('Algeria Remembered')Date1874
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
111 x 144 cm
Signedlower right: Eug. Fromentin/1874
Credit LinePresented, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, 1950
Object numberNGI.4231
DescriptionEugène Fromentin was an Orientalist painter who specialised in genre scenes set in North African landscapes. As well as being a successful artist he was also a highly regarded writer, critic and art historian. In 1874 Fromentin published new editions of his travel books, A Summer in the Sahara (1857) and A Year in the Sahel (1859). In the preface of the former, he wrote how Algeria had become the principal subject of his work, unexpectedly and to a greater extent than he had ever planned. In the same year he exhibited two paintings at the Salon, this work and A Ravine (Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas). Both pictures were given the title Algeria Remembered. The concept of memory was integral to Fromentin’s artistic ideas and practice. Falcon Hunt is a reworking of an earlier picture, Heron Hunt (1865; Musée Condé, Chantilly). It depicts a group of Algerian noblemen on horseback engaging in a hunt. Fromentin admired the work of seventeenth-century Dutch artists and in particular that of Jacob van Ruisdael. The prominence given to the vast sky in this composition shows the influence of Van Ruisdael’s landscapes.
March 2016
ProvenanceCollection Laurent Richard; Laurent Richard sale, Paris, 3-4 May 1878; Collection Secretan; Secretan sale, Paris, 1889; Isaac Pereire, Paris; Collection Mme Gustave Pereire; Mme Gustave Pereire sale, Paris, 4 June 1937; Galerie Jean Charpentier; Sir Alfred Chester Beatty; presented, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, 1950 Exhibition HistorySalon, Paris, 1874, no.755
Exposition des oeuvres de Eugène Fromentin, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1877, no.6
Centenaire de la Conquête d' Algérie, Petit Palais, Paris, 1930, no.219
Exhibition of the Chester Beatty Collection, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1950
The East: Imagined, Experienced, Remembered. Orientalist Nineteenth Century Painting, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1988
La Peinture Francais du XIXe siècle. Collection Chester Beatty de la Galerie National d'Irlande, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Calais; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Quimper; Musée Sainte-Croix, Poitiers, 1989
French 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
Label TextEugène Fromentin was an Orientalist artist who specialised in painting genre scenes set in North Africa. He was also a highly regarded travel-writer, critic, and art-historian. This work depicts a group of Algerian noblemen hunting on horseback. Fromentin greatly admired the work of seventeenth-century Dutch artists and in particular that of Jacob van Ruisdael. His use of a low viewpoint and depiction of an expansive sky shows the influence of Ruisdael’s landscapes.