Gazehounds, Victorian Sentiment

Briton Riviere (1840-1920) British artist of Huguenot descent.
“At the Garden Gate” c.1887.

“His only friend” 1868. Briton Rivière (1840 – 1920) – English painter.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) , On the Desert, c.1867.

Gerome was a frequent traveler first visiting the East in 1854 and returning in 1867, 1869, 1875, and 1881.

Some of his “Orientalist” paintings are of documentary interest whereas others are highly romanticized.

This small panel, commissioned by William T. Walters, depicts two hounds being walked by a Nubian in a barren and windy desert. The trim shapes of the dogs suggest that they are “Pharaoh Hounds,” a breed descended from the hunting dogs of ancient Egypt.

Date before 1867

Medium oil on panel

Dimensions height: 21 cm (8.2 in); width: 26.8 cm (10.5 in);

Collection Walters Art Museum in the Mount Vernon section of Baltimore, Maryland.USA.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (French pronunciation: [ 11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism.

His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was “arguably the world’s most famous living artist by 1880.”