An Arab Sheik

Bonnat painted this Orientalist subject in 1870, the same year as his Egyptian mother-and-child canvas, suggesting a productive engagement with North African subjects following travels to the region. The 'Arab Sheik' belonged to a well-established sub-genre of Orientalist painting: the dignified elder of the desert, whose flowing robes and bearing combined Biblical antiquity with picturesque contemporary reality. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore holds the work as part of its important collection of nineteenth-century European painting. Bonnat's contribution to the Orientalist genre was distinguished by commitment to individual character rather than type — where many painters produced generic 'Arab' figures, Bonnat's sitters retain specificity suggesting actual observation of a particular person.

Oil on canvas with the warm, controlled palette Bonnat developed for his Near Eastern subjects. The flowing robes of the sheik offer study of fabric in movement and repose that contrasts with the European suits and clerical dress of his portrait subjects.