LÉON BELLY | Gazelle Hunt in Egypt

Private collection, France (sale: Sotheby's, London, 13 June 2006, lot 219)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Sydney, The Art Gallery of New South Wales; Auckland, Auckland Art Gallery, Orientalism, Delacroix to Klee, 1998, no. 21, illustrated in the catalogue

Lynne Thornton, Les Orientalistes, Paris, 1994, p. 22. discussed, p. 23, illustrated

This painting is in good condition with bright fresh colours. The canvas has been relined. There is minor scattered craquelure and some pin-head sized spots of paint loss, only visible upon close inspection, in the sky in the upper left corner, in the far camel to the left and in the ground in the lower left quadrant respectively. There is also a scratch to the surface between the legs of the figure on the ground at the left. Examination under ultra-violet light reveals scattered areas of retouching in the sky but the figures and camels are primarily untouched. Held in a decorative moulded frame in fairly good condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The proud stances of the camels and their riders, the fluttering robes, bright sun, and vivid colours combine to make this a work of true bravura, and bear testimony to Belly's genius at capturing the stark light and desert winds of the Egyptian Sinai.  Belly travelled to Egypt three times, in 1850, 1856, and 1857. The Gazelle Hunt was most likely worked up from sketches Belly made in 1856 during his excursion into the Sinai desert with fellow painters Narcisse Berchère and Jean-Léon Gérôme.

'From the wells of Moses we’ve followed a large plain, partly of sand, partly covered with large pebbles… On the left in the far distance, a chain of low, harsh, fractured mountains. This vast landscape, arid and abandoned, is always of the suavest colour; it seems that nature, so severe here and offering nothing that can refresh the senses, has been provided by way of compensation with the most seductive qualities of light and colour,' Belly wrote to his mother on 30 April 1856 (quoted in Conrad de Mandach, 'Léon Belly', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 4^th series, vol. 9, February 1913, p. 144).

Belly's experiences in Egypt were the inspiration for his greatest works, most famously his monumental Pilgrims going to Mecca of 1861 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris).