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Jean-Léon Gérôme
French, 1824–1904
Snake Charmer
c. 1879
Painted with minute precision based in part on actual places—Istanbul’s Topkapı palace inspired the tiled wall, while the stone floor resembles that of the mosque of Amr in Cairo— this scene presents a European fantasy of life in the Islamic world. The assembled men, whose garments and weapons are derived from a combination of cultures, appear dazed as they watch a snake charmer. Their gaze upon the boy’s naked body calls attention to our own. This type of painting, referred to as Orientalist, reflected and shaped European prejudices about the world beyond its borders.
Image Caption
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Snake Charmer, c. 1879, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.51
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
32 3/8 x 47 5/8 in. (82.2 x 121 cm)
Frame: 41 × 56 × 4 1/4 in. (104.1 × 142.2 × 10.8 cm)
Object Number
1955.51
Acquisition
Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status
On Loan
Select Bibliography
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester.. Orientalism: The Near East in French Painting, 1820-1880. Aug. 27-Oct. 17, 1982; Neuberger Museum, SUNY, Purchase, Nov. 4-Dec. 23, 1982. Cat. by Donald A. Rosenthal. Stranahan, Clara Harrison. A History of French Painting. New York: Scribner's, 1888. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.. Loan Nov. 1897-April 1898. Handbook. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four: First Two Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1958. Ackerman, Gerald M. "Gérôme's 'Chat by the Fireside.'" (Vol. 4, nos. 4-5). The Register of the Museum of Art, University of Kansas. 1969-1971. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Dayton Art Institute.. Jean-Léon Gérôme as a Painter of Near Eastern Life." Jean-Léon Gérôme (exh.cat. essays by Gerald M. Ackerman and R. Ettinghausen.). Nov. 10-Dec. 30, 1972.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Wichmann, Siegfried. World Cultures and Modern Art: The Encounter of 19th and 20th Century Art and Music with Asia, Africa, Oceania, Afro- and Indo-America. Exhibition catalogue. Munich: Organizing Committee for the Games of the XX Olympiad, 1972. David Sellin.. "The First Pose: Howard Roberts, Thomas Eakins, and a Century of Philadelphia Nudes.". vol. 70, nos. 311-312.. Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin.. Spring 1975.. Edward W. Said.. Orientalism.. New York: Pantheon Books.. 1978.. Harding, James. Artistes Pompiers: French Academic Art in the 19th Century. London: Academy Editions, 1979. Michelle Verrier.. The Orientalists.. London: Academy Editions.. 1979.. Brooks, John H. Highlights: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1981. Gordon Murray as Aubrey Thatcher.. "Ocean Dawn.". No. 6.. NAMBLA Journal.. 1983.:pp. 12-13.. Linda Nochlin.. "On 'Orientalism' in 19th-Century Painting.". Art in America.. May 1983.:pp. 119-31, 187-89.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Le Pichan, Yann. L'Erotisme des chers maîtres. Paris: Editions Denoël, 1986. Yann le Pichan.. Eros in Academia.. Napoli: Guida Editore.. 1986.. Gerald M. Ackerman.. The life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, with a catalogue raisonné.. New York: Sotheby's Publications/Paris: ACR Ed. Internationale.. 1986.. G. Vincent.. Histoire de la vie privée.. Paris: Ed. du Seuil.. 1987.. Hermann Polling. Exotische Welten--Europäische Phantasien, 1987.. Stuttgart: Wurttenbergischer Kunstverein.. Linda Nochlin.. The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society.. New York: Harper & Row.. 1989.. Néret, Gilles. L'érotisme en peinture. Paris: Editions Nathan, 1990. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Thomas Hastings.. "Said's 'Orientalism' and the Discourse of (Hetero)sexuality.". 23:1.. Canadian Review of American Studies.. (Fall 1992).:pp. 127-147.. Susan J. Montgomery.. William H. Grueby: The Spirit of the New Idea in Artistic Handicraft.. Arts and Crafts Quarterly Press.. 1993.. Walter B. Denny.. "Quotations in and out of Context: Ottoman Turkish Art and European Orientalist Painting.". vol. 10.. Mugarnas.. 1993.:pp. 219-30.. Joel Kraemer.. "Is the Classical Heritage Western?: Some Reflections on Edward Said's Orientalism.". 14:1.. Criterion.. (Winter 1995):pp. 20-25.. Leppert, Richard. Art and the Committed Eye: The Cultural Functions of Imagery. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. Roger Celestin.. From Cannibals to Radicals: Figures and Limits of Exoticism.. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.. 1996.. Kern, Steven, et al. The Clark: Selections from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996. Anonymous. "Nineteenth-Century Painting and Sculpture." The Magazine Antiques 152 (October 1997): 522–31. Benjamin, Roger, ed. Orientalism: Delacroix to Klee. Exhibition catalogue. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998. Hélène Lafont-Couturier.. Gérôme.. Paris: Editions Herscher.. 1998.. Robert Dessaix.. And So Forth.. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia.. 1998.. Flowers, Charles. "A Curator's Journey: How Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures Grew from Idea to Reality." Journal of the Clark Art Institute 1 (2000): 1221. Edwards, Holly. Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870–1930. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Melikian, Souren. "A Unique and Unforgettable Collection." International Herald Tribune, 16–17 September 2000. Dominique Fernandez. L'Amour qui ose dire son nom: Art et homosexualité. Paris: Éditions Stock. 2001. Balemi, Silke. Reisephotographie in Ostasien und europäische Reisebider in Wissenschadt, Kunst und Alltag von ca. 1860 bis 1914/18. Pedrazzini Edizioni- Locarno. 2003:p.118-119, Abb.1. Doñate, Mercè, Cristina Mendoxa, and Francesc M. Quílez i Corella. Fortuny (1838-1874). Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, October 16, 2003-February 15, 2004. Barcelona: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. 2003. Fine, Ruth. The Art of Romare Bearden. Exhibition catalogue. Washington, DC: The National Gallery of Art in association with Harry N. Abrams, 2003. Edward W. Said. Orientalism. Penguin Books. 2003:cover. Schwartz, Vanessa R. and Jeannene M. Przyblyski, ed. The Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture Reader. New York: Routledge. 2004:p. 290 fig. 31.1. Davies, Kristian. The Orientalists: Western Artists in Arabia, The Sahara, Persia & India. New York: Layfaroh. 2005:detail: p. 18, p. 19, p. 251. Smith, Kimberly A. "Real Style: Riegel and Early 20th Century Central European Art" Centropa: A Journal of Central European Architecture amd Related Arts. Vol. 5, No. 1. Centropa. 01/2005:pp. 16-25, fig. 4. Dalwood, Dexter and Nancy Ireson. "A Stubborn Cornerstone at the Onset of Modernism." Tate etc. Issue 5. London: Tate Gallery, 2005. Mortimer, Mildred. "Re-presenting the Orient: A New Instructional Approach" The French Review. Vol. 79, No. 2. Kansas: Allen Press. 12/2005. Kuhn, William. The Politics of Pleasure. Simon & Schister UK Ltd.. 2006. Conforti, Michael, et al. The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven: distributed by Yale University Press, 2006. Nehamas, Alexander. Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art. Princeton: Princeton Univeristy Press, 2007. Allan, Scott, and Mary Morton, ed. Reconsidering Gérôme. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010. Cars, Laurence des, et al. The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904). Exh. cat. Milan: Skira and the Musée d'Orsay, 2010. Dearing, Stewart. "Painting the Other Within: Gypsies According to the Bohemian Artist in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries." Romani Studies: Continuing Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 20, no. 2 (December 2010). Des Cars, Laurence. Gérome, de la Peinture à L'Image. Exhibition catalogue. Paris: Gallimard and Musée d'Orsay, 2010. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.
Provenance
The artist, sold to Goupil, 24 Aug. 1880; [Goupil, Paris, sold to Spencer, 5 Oct. 1880];¹ Albert Spencer, New York (1880–88, his sale, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, 28 Feb. 1888, no. 66, sold to Clark); Alfred Corning Clark, New York and Cooperstown (1888–d. 1896); Elizabeth Scriven Clark, his wife, by descent (1896–1899/1902, sold to Schaus Art Galleries);² [Schaus Art Galleries, New York, from 1899/1902]; August Heckscher, New York (d. 1941); Virginia Henry Curtiss Heckscher, New York, his wife, by descent (d. 1941, her sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 22 Jan. 1942, no. 86, sold to Durand-Ruel, as agent for Clark); Robert Sterling Clark (1942–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
1. Goupil Stock Books, vol. 10, p. 127, no. 14822. See also Gérôme & Goupil: Art and Enterprise, exh. cat., 2000–2001, pp. 19, 42.
2. The Snake Charmer is recorded as being on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from Mrs. Alfred Corning Clark (Elizabeth Scriven Clark) by April 1897 until at least April 1898. See Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pictures by Old Masters . . . Loan Collections and Recent Gifts to the Museum . . . Henry G. Marquand Collection, 1897, p. 50, no. 173, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pictures by Old Masters . . . Loan Collections and Recent Gifts to the Museum . . . Henry G. Marquand Collection, 1897–98, p. 46, no. 173. In his diaries, Sterling Clark later recalled that this work was sold in partial exchange for Géricault’s Trumpeter of the Hussars (1955.949), commenting in 1944 that “my mother had turned [Snake Charmer] in to Schaus for $10,000 to $12,000 around 1899 as part payment for the “Trompette de Hussards” at $35,000” (RSC diary, 11 Nov. 1944). Unless it took place in two separate steps, however, this transaction could not have occurred in 1899, since Trumpeter of the Hussars was with its previous owner until 1902.