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Slave Market

Jean-Léon Gérôme

French, 1824–1904

Slave Market

1866

A naked woman at center and man at far right are shown in a public courtyard, as prospective slave owners inspect their bodies. Meticulous details like the figures’ clothing, as well as the style of the surrounding architecture, evoke locales such as Egypt and Turkey, where Gérôme spent several months traveling and sketching. Constructed both from imagination and observation, this dehumanizing scene portrays Islamic society as strange, violent, and depraved. Such paintings appealed to France’s assumptions of its own moral superiority as it expanded its colonial empire across North Africa.

Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 33 5/16 x 24 15/16 in. (84.6 x 63.3 cm) Frame: 45 x 36 3/4 x 4 in. (114.3 x 93.3 x 10.2 cm)
Object Number 1955.53
Acquisition Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status On View

Image Caption

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Slave Market, 1866, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.53

Select Bibliography

Marshall, Harry, Director. White Slaves, Pirate Gold. Icon Films for BBC. 01/10/2003. Mileaf, Jenine A. "Poses for the Camera" American Art. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. 2002:p. 48. Paris: The Salon, 1867.. Explication. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four: First Two Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Edwards, Holly. Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870–1930. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Edward Strahan, ed.. A Collection of the Works of Jean Léon Gérôme in 100 Photogravures.. New York: S. L. Hall.. 1881.. Stranahan, Clara Harrison. A History of French Painting. New York: Scribner's, 1888. Frankfurter, Alfred. "Dark Horse in Williamstown." Art News 54, no. 4 (Summer 1955): 28–31. 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. George Heard Hamilton.. Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Art.. New York: Abrams.. 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. Edward Lucie-Smith.. Eroticism in Western Art. World of Art Series.. London: Thames and Hudson.. 1972.. Norman, Geraldine. Nineteenth-Century Painters and Painting: A Dictionary. London: Thames & Hudson, 1977. Harding, James. Artistes Pompiers: French Academic Art in the 19th Century. London: Academy Editions, 1979. Michelle Verrier.. The Orientalists.. London: Academy Editions.. 1979.. Roskill, Mark, and David Carrier. Truth and Falsehood in Visual Images. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1983. Linda Nochlin.. "On 'Orientalism' in 19th-Century Painting.". Art in America.. May 1983.:pp. 119-31, 187-89.. Cornell, Sara. Art: A History of Changing Style. Oxford: Phaidon, 1983. 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. Frank Nicolaus.. "Kitsch oder vergessene Schönheit?". C 1084 E No. 6.. Art: das Kunstmagazin.. June 1984.:pp. 34-51.. Garb, Tamar. "New Methodologies in Art History: Implications for School Teaching.". vol. 3, no. 3. Journal of Art & Design Education. 1984:pp. 347-57.. Weinberg, H. Barbara. The American Pupils of Jean-Léon Gérôme. Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 1984. Pelfrey, Robert H. Art and Mass Media. 2nd edition. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1996. Yann le Pichan.. Eros in Academia.. Napoli: Guida Editore.. 1986.. G. Vincent.. Histoire de la vie privée.. Paris: Ed. du Seuil.. 1987.. Hugh Honour.. The Image of the Black in Western Art. Vol. 4.. Cambridge (MA) and London: Harvard University Press.. 1989.. Croutier, Alev Lytle. Harem: The World Behind the Veil. New York: Abbeville Press, 1989. Gereon Sievernich and Hendrik Budde.. Europa und der Orient: 800-1900. Exh.cat.). Berlin: Berliner Festspiele.. 1989.. Brooks, Peter. "Storied Bodies, or Nana at Last Unveil'd." Critical Inquiry 16 (Autumn 1989): 132. Brooks, Peter. "Le corps-récit, ou Nana enfin devoilée." Romantisme 63 1989: pp. 74, 77. Le Pichan, Yann. L'Erotisme des chers maîtres. Paris: Editions Denoël, 1986. Tintner, Adline R. The Museum World of Henry James. Ann Arbor (MI): UMI Research Press. 1986. Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, Keith Moxey, ed.. Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation.. [London?]: Polity Press.. [1990?].. Weinberg, H. Barbara. The Lure of Paris: Nineteenth-Century American Painters and Their French Teachers. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991. Burchard Brentjes.. Die Kunst der Mauren.. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag.. 1992,. Linda Nochlin.. The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society.. New York: Harper & Row.. 1989.. Ralph P. Locke.. "Constructing the Oriental 'Other': Saint-Saëns's 'Samson et Dalila.'". 3:3.. Cambridge Opera Journal.. Nov. 1991.:pp. 261-302.. Michael Gill.. Image of the Body: Aspects of the Nude.. New York: Doubleday.. 1989.. Bersson, Robert. Worlds of Art. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1991. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Manfred Koch-Hillebrecht.. Museen in den U.S.A.. Munich: Hirmer Verlag.. 1992.. Gost, Roswith. Der Harem. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1993. Shawkat M. Toorawa.. "Every Robe He Dons Becomes Him.". vol. 19, no. 3.. Parabola.. Fall 1994.:pp. 20-25.. Collette Juilliard Beaudan. L'Imaginaire de la femme enfermée: Le regard des peintres et des écrivains du XIXe siècle français sur la femme orientale.. 1994.. Ph.D. dissertation. 1994. German TV ZDF,. Behind the Veil.. 1. broadcast on German public TY; 2. videocassette for sale. German TV ZDF:slide sent Sept. 1993. Reina Lewis.. Gendering Orientalism: Race--Femininity--Representation.. London: Routledge.. 1996.. Van Hook, Bailey. Angels of Art: Women and Art in American Society, 1876-1914. Ph.D. diss. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1996. Richard Dellamora, ed.. The Work of Opera.. New York: Columbia University Press.. 1997.. Pelfrey, Robert and Mary Hall-Pelfrey. Art and Mass Media. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. James Deaville.. "Liszts Orientalismus: Die Gestaltung des Andersseins in der Musik?"Liszt und die Nationalitäten: Bericht über das internationale musikwissenschaftliche Symposion Eisenstadt, 10.-12. März 1994.. Band 93.. Eisenstadt 1996: Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten aus dem Burgenland.:pp. 163-95.. Leppert, Richard. Art and the Committed Eye: The Cultural Functions of Imagery. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. Hans Ojmyr.. "Orientalism." In exh.cat. Framlingen--Drom eller hot (The 'other'--threat or utopia).. Stockholm: Nationalmuseum.. Sept. 13-Dec. 8, 1996.. Jennifer McLerran.. "Trappers' Brides and Country Wives: Native American Women in the Paintings of Alfred Jacob Miller.". American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 18:2 (1994), pp. 1-41.. Marina Sauer.. L'Entrée des femmes à l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts 1880-1923.. Paris: Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.. 1990.. Della Pollock.. Exceptional Spaces: Essays in Performance and History.. Chapel Hill (NC): University of North Carolina Press.. 1998.. Salzburg: Residenzgalerie Salsburg.. Orient: Österreichische Malerei zwischen 1848 und 1914. July 20-Sept. 24, 1997. Cat. by Erika Mayr-Oehring. Sylvan Barnet.. A Short Guide to Writing about Art, 6th ed.. Addison Wesley.. 2000.. Reina Lewis.. Gendering Orientalism: Race, Feminity, and Representation.. London: Routledge.. 1996.. Barbara Hey.. "Sexualität im Spiegel des Anderen. 'Exotische Sexualität' in 18. und 19. Jahrhundert," in Franz X. Eder and Sabie Frühstuck, eds., Neue Geschichten der Sexualität. Beispiele aus Mitteleuropa und Ostasien.. Vienna: Turia & Kant.. 1999.:pp. 93-116.. Leppert, Richard. "The Female Nude: Surfaces of Desire." In Viewpoints: Readings in Art History. 2nd edition. Edited by Carole Gold Calo. Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001. Butash, Adrian. Book on the history of swimwear Chamberlin-Hellman, Maria. Thomas Eakins, Master Teacher. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press. Scherer, Barrymore Laurence. "Saint-Saens and the Orientalists". Opera News. Feb. 28, 1998.. Al-Taee, Nasser. Exoticism in Eighteenth-Century Opera. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Lewis, Bernard. A Mid-East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History. New York: Random House. Mendelsohn, Ezra. Mauryey. New England University Press. Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. Harems of the Mind: Passages of Western Art and Literature. London: Yale University Press. 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.. Toledano, Ehud R. "Shemsigul: A Circassian Slave in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Cairo" Zmamin- Quarterly Journal for History. Issue No. 88, November 2004. School of History at Tel Aviv University, The Open University of Israel, Merkaz Zalman Shazar and the Historical Society of Irael. 2004:p. 75. Bohrer, Frederick N. Orientalism and Visual Culture: Imagining Mesopotamia in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge University Press. 2003:p. 47 fig. 3. Hurd, Pippa. Icons of Erotic Art. London: Prestel. 2004:p. 68. DelPlato, Joan. Multiple Wives, Multiple Pleasures: Representing the Harem, 1800-1875. Cranbury (NJ): Associated Univeristy Press/Rosemount Publishing & Printing Corp.. 2002:Plate 4; p. 82, Fig. 3.12. Bersson, Robert. Responding to Art: Form, Content, and Context. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2004:p. 507. Erika Mayr-Oehing and Elke Doppler. Orientalische Reise: Malerei und Exotik im Späten 19. Jahrhundert. Wien Museum in association with Residenzgalerie Salzburg. 2003:p. 86 fig. 8. Edited by A. A. Donohue and Mark D. Fullerton. Ancient Art and Its Historiography. Cambridge University Press. 2003:p. 20 Fig. 5. Cars, Laurence des, et al. The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904). Exh. cat. Milan: Skira and the Musée d'Orsay, 2010. Nasser Al-Taee. Representations of the Orient in Western Music: Violence and Sensuality. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010. 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. 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.

EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY

Provenance

The artist, sold to Goupil, 23 Aug. 1866, as Un marché d’esclaves; [Goupil, Paris, sold to Gambart, 22 Sept. 1866]¹; [Ernest Gambart, London, 1866, returned to Goupil, Nov. 1866]; [Goupil, Paris, Nov. 1866, sold to Mayer, 27 Jan. 1867, as Marchand d’esclaves];² [Mayer, Dresden, from 1867];³ [Knoedler, Paris, sold to Clark, 1 May 1930, as Marché d’Esclaves]; Robert Sterling Clark (1930–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. Goupil Stock Books, book 3, p. 94, no. 2355. 2. Goupil Stock Books, book 3, p. 119, no. 2598. The buyer is recorded only as “M. Mayer, de Dresde.” Gambart had returned The Slave Market to Goupil in exchange for a second version of Gérôme’s Louis XIV and Molière [A 139; Goupil Stock Books, book 3, p. 119, no. 2597]. See also Gérôme & Goupil: Art and Enterprise, exh. cat., 2000–2001, p. 132, under no. 91. 3. Mayer purchased the painting in Jan. 1867, but since it was shown in the Paris Salon, which opened on 15 April, he may not have taken possession of the work until after its exhibition. This painting has also, erroneously, been catalogued as belonging to the August Belmont collection, but this confuses it with a painting often similarly titled The Slave Market now in the Cincinnati Art Museum [A 217].

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