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Eugène Fromentin
French, 1820–1876
Arabs Watering Their Horses
1872
While traveling in North Africa, Fromentin made many sketches of figures, horses, and landscapes, on which he based subsequent paintings. The steep hillside and low, whitewashed building in this work recall the landscape of Algeria, though they are unlikely to correspond to a specific location. Instead, the scene was intended to give the impression of a place that is convincingly foreign, yet familiarly picturesque.
Image Caption
Eugène Fromentin, Arabs Watering Their Horses, 1872, oil on panel. Clark Art Institute, 1955.744
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
23 1/2 x 28 5/8 in. (59.7 x 72.7 cm)
Frame: 30 1/2 x 35 1/2 x 3 in. (77.5 x 90.2 x 7.6 cm)
Object Number
1955.744
Acquisition
Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status
On View
Select Bibliography
New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.. 1886-1903. Champlin, J. H., Jr., ed. Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Seven: The Regency and Louis XVI Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1957. Polley, Robert L., ed. Great Art Treasures in America's Smaller Museums. Text by Harold E. Haydon. New York: Putnam's, 1967. 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. 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. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.. To Look on Nature. April 7-May 8, 1972.. 1972.. Cass, David B. and Michael M. Floss. Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, 1803-1860. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. 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. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. 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
William H. Vanderbilt, New York (by 1879–d. 1885); George Washington Vanderbilt, his son, by descent (1885–d. 1914);¹ Cornelius Vanderbilt III, his nephew, by descent (1914–d. 1942); Grace Wilson Vanderbilt, his wife, by descent (1942–1945, her sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 18 Apr. 1945, no. 122, sold to Knoedler); [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 20 Apr. 1945]; Robert Sterling Clark (1945–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
1. George Washington Vanderbilt placed this and a number of other works on long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1886. The works were returned to his nephew in 1919.