Eugène Fromentin (French, 1820-1876)
On the Nile
INV-5719
Eugène Fromentin (French, 1820-1876)1871
On the Nile
Eugène Fromentin (French, 1820-1876) →19th centuryoil on canvaspainting
Date
1871
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
63.8 × 110.6 cm (25 × 43 1/2 in.); Framed: 80.7 × 127 × 6.4 cm (31 3/4 × 50 × 2 1/2 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Nickerson Collection
This seemingly objective rendering of 19th-century Egypt depicts a caravan resting on the shores on the Nile. A large dahabeah, or houseboat, balances on the low horizon line. The building in the right background might be the temple at Luxor or the one at Philae, the latter of which Eugène Fromentin mentioned in the diary he kept while traveling in Egypt during the fall of 1869.
Fromentin was in Egypt to witness the opening of the Suez Canal; he based this composition on sketches he made at the time. While Orientalism—European representations of Near Eastern and North African places and people—was beginning to wane by the time Fromentin painted this scene, the opening of the canal marked a new age of colonial imperialism.
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