Orientalism painting by important French writer, art critic and painter Eugène Fromentin ( 1820 in La Rochelle - 1876 in St. Maurice near La Rochelle). He gained his reputation as a writer with the psychological novel Dominique (1862).

As a painter, he particularly strove to depict the phenomena of light and air that appear in the desert climate with the greatest finesse of brushwork, while at the same time giving the staffage a characteristic meaning. His speciality was the gradation of tones in grey and violet. His main paintings are: Moorish funeral (1853), gazelle hunt, audience with a caliph, black jugglers among the nomads, Bab el Gharbi street in El Aghuât (1859), Arab couriers, Arab bivouac at daybreak, the Arab falcon hunter and the falcon hunt in Algiers (1863, in the Luxembourg), the heron hunt (1865), the Fantasia in Algiers (1869).

He was successful with his Algerian paintings because they corresponded to the artistic taste of the time. Today they are less noticed. His works can be seen in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, among other places.

Litearature: artist lexicons by Bénézit; Thieme/Becker ; Eugène Fromentin, peintre et écrivain (1881) von Gonse (in French),  La Rochelle 1970 (exhibition cataloque in the museum of fine arts).

Inscription: signed lower left.

Technique: oil on canvas, antique gold plated frame.

Measurements: unframed w 25 2/3" x h 15 3/4"(65 x 40 cm); framed 31 1/2" x 21 1/4"( 80 x 54,5 cm).

Condition: good, original canvas was profess. cleaned, no inpaintings.