Arabs Watering Their Horses

1872

While traveling in North Africa, Fromentin made many sketches of figures, horses, and landscapes, on which he based subsequent paintings. The steep hillside and low, whitewashed building in this work recall the landscape of Algeria, though they are unlikely to correspond to a specific location. Instead, the scene was intended to give the impression of a place that is convincingly foreign, yet familiarly picturesque.

Medium	oil on panel
Dimensions	23 1/2 x 28 5/8 in. (59.7 x 72.7 cm) Frame: 30 1/2 x 35 1/2 x 3 in. (77.5 x 90.2 x 7.6 cm)
Object Number	1955.744
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Eugène Fromentin, Arabs Watering Their Horses, 1872, oil on panel. Clark Art Institute, 1955.744

Select Bibliography

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.. 1886-1903. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Seven: The Regency and Louis XVI Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1957. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.. To Look on Nature. April 7-May 8, 1972.. 1972.. Cass, David B. and Michael M. Floss. Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, 1803-1860. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Champlin, J. H., Jr., ed. Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886. 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. 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. 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. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. 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. Polley, Robert L., ed. Great Art Treasures in America's Smaller Museums. Text by Harold E. Haydon. New York: Putnam's, 1967.

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Provenance

William H. Vanderbilt, New York (by 1879–d. 1885); George Washington Vanderbilt, his son, by descent (1885–d. 1914);¹ Cornelius Vanderbilt III, his nephew, by descent (1914–d. 1942); Grace Wilson Vanderbilt, his wife, by descent (1942–1945, her sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 18 Apr. 1945, no. 122, sold to Knoedler); [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 20 Apr. 1945]; Robert Sterling Clark (1945–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. George Washington Vanderbilt placed this and a number of other works on long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1886. The works were returned to his nephew in 1919.