Khartoum, coucher de soleil

Félix Ziem's sunset view of Khartoum (1887) was painted in the aftermath of the city's dramatic fall to the Mahdi's forces in January 1885 and the death of General Gordon — one of the defining events of British imperialism and a subject that gripped European public attention. Ziem's view of the Sudanese capital at sunset makes no reference to the military drama but places the city within the Orientalist tradition of exotic landscapes rendered in the warm, golden light that made such subjects so commercially appealing. The Nile city at dusk provided a subject combining geographical exoticism with the atmospheric conditions he excelled at depicting.

Ziem applies his characteristic warm, luminous palette to the Sudanese sunset — the ochres and golds of the Khartoum landscape intensified by the setting sun's warmth. The Nile's surface provides the reflective element that was always central to his compositions. His handling creates the atmospheric density of the North African sunset, the air itself seeming to glow with accumulated warmth.