Delacroix Et L'aube De L'orientalisme De Decamps À Fromentin, Dessins Et Peintures

Exhibition at the Jeu de paume du Domaine de Chantilly, 30 September 2012 - 7 January 2013

With Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798, then the colonisation of Algeria in 1830, a taste for exoticism developed in the first half of the 19th century: these were the beginnings of Orientalism. The first travelling artists discovered the Near East and North Africa: Decamps in Turkey in 1828, Delacroix in Morocco in 1832, bringing back notebooks of watercolour drawings that were to inspire him throughout his life, Marilhat in Egypt, Fromentin in Algeria, and Horace Vernet painted Abd el-Kader and the taking of the smala.

This catalogue of the collection assembled in Chantilly by the Duc d'Aumale explores this attraction for the Orient, from its beginnings with Gros to the Universal Exhibition of 1855.