Arabian Sheikhs in the Mountains

Painted in 1872 and held in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, this work continues Bonnat's engagement with Orientalist subjects established in his 1870 paintings. 'Arabian Sheikhs in the Mountains' moves from a single figure study to a more ambitious multi-figure composition in a landscape setting. The mountain setting may refer to the Atlas range in Morocco or Algeria, or to highland regions of the Levant. The Hermitage's collection of nineteenth-century European painting was assembled through the active purchasing policy of the Russian Imperial court, which sought a comprehensive survey of Western painting alongside its Old Masters holdings. The work's Russian provenance suggests it was sold through the Paris art market during this active period of Russian collecting from French dealers.

Oil on canvas with a warm, dusty palette for a mountain landscape in North Africa or the Levant. The figures of the sheikhs are rendered with individual solidity while the landscape provides atmospheric context rather than competing for pictorial attention.